Armchair Punditry

Some things call for profanity.

2009-02-04T12:27:00.006-05:00

And this is one of them.

Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.
And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans - and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team - understand.

"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said.

Protecting the country’s security is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business," he said. "These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."

Citing intelligence reports, Cheney said at least 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo during the Bush administration - "that’s about 11 or 12 percent" - have "gone back into the business of being terrorists."

Nevermind the lie in the last paragraph: fuck Dick Cheney and the rest of the people who mainstreamed torture in this country. Even out of power all this evil little man has is fearmongering. At least they're no longer relevant.

Karl Rove, Liar

2009-01-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

But you probably already knew that.

Thwack!

2009-01-04T01:31:00.005-05:00

Wow. Just wow. Zbigniew Brzezinski schools Joe Scarborough on Israel:

"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you." - Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

It's like watching my grandpa tell some young whipper snapper what's what. Beautiful.

(video via Taylor Marsh - here)

Campaign Ads

2008-09-26T21:35:00.003-04:00

Most of them are insulting to our intelligence. But what would they look like if the voting age was 6?

Answer: awesome.

John McCain summarized in six panels

2008-09-16T01:55:00.002-04:00

Questions about foreign policy? Sexist!

2008-09-09T01:55:00.003-04:00

I give you our right-wing opinion makers.

"She's an economic and social conservative. She's a reformer. She's a former mayor - she was the mayor of I think the second largest city in Alaska before she ran for Governor." - Karl Rove last week on Sarah Palin on why she's a great VP choice.

"He's been a governor for 3 years, he was mayor of the 105th largest city in America - with all due respect to Richmond Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, CA, Aurora, CO [lists several other larger cities] - it's not a big town. So if he [Obama] were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said 'You know what? I'm really not first and foremost concerned with is this person capable of being President of the United States." - Rove, a month ago discussing Obama's possible VP pick, the governor of Virginia.

"Millions of American families are dealing with teenage pregnancy and as long as society doesn't have to support the mother, father or baby, it's a personal matter... It is true that some Americans will judge Governor Palin and her family - for the sake of her and her family we hope things calm down." - Bill O'Reilly telling us that Palin's daughter's pregnancy is none of our business.

"Here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her. Incredible." - Bill O'Reilly several months ago condemnig 16 year old Jamie Lynn Spears and her parents for her widely-publicized pregnancy.

"There have been tougher and harder questions that have been asked relentlessly by a biased news media about her daughter than about Barack Obama who's been running for 19 months." - Sean Hannity on Palin's coverage.

"A man would never have had to go through this. It's the deep sexism that runs through our society." - Dick Morris agreeing with the previous Hannity quote.

"When a woman wants to be President she shouldn't complain based on gender. ... Whenever the coverage gets too critical she retreats behind the apron strings." - Dick Morris calling Hillary Clinton a crybaby for complaining about coverage of her.

"People who think they're helping her by playing this gender card are hurting her. It would be a terrible mistake for her to play this victimology card because I think it's not what we want in a President." - McCain adviser on Clinton's coverage

"The nature of these attacks, because they involve family members and because they're just so disrespecful of her as a woman... I hope that they would have learned by now not to be so quick to belittle the accomplishments of women... Questions about - she has young children - that came out, and it was, from a feminine perspective I found that to be one of the most outrageous double-standards I've ever seen." - same advisor on how the media is being too hard on Palin.

And finally...

"When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate, with any kind of perceived whine about excess criticism by the media or a sharper microscope put on her - I think that doesn't do any good. I mean - work harder, prove yourself to an even greater degree that you're going to be the best candidate." - Sarah Palin on why Hillary Clinton should stop whining about sexism and just be a better candidate.

Of course, the "excess criticism by the media or a sharper microscope put on her" doesn't feel so good when you're the "her" - does it? Then we were tearing down a woman with a (D) after her name - now, we're talking about an unknown governor who's been in charge of less money per year than we waste per month in Iraq who's supposed foreign policy experience comes from a geographic proximity to Russia. It's not sexist to point any of this out - it's a statement of fact and of John McCain's disrespect for the American people, not to mention the Republican faithful who are stepping up to spout this nonsense as if it made any sense.

Source for all this here; http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=184086.

Why any of these people should be taken seriously about anything is beyond me.

Assholes.

2008-09-05T04:16:00.007-04:00

One thing happened at the RNC tonight that to me reeks of desperation. The GOP has now broken the unwritten taboo against using footage of the 9/11 attacks for political gain (snarky take here). Tonight at the convention John McCain aired footage of the attacks (link), billed as a "tribute to 9/11". Tribute my ass. Waving the bloody shirt ring a bell?

As Keith Olbermann says at the end of the clip, at this late date if a news organization aired that much footage of 9/11, it would be "eviscerated from all quarters, perhaps by the Republican party itself, for exploiting the memory of the dead and perhaps trying to evoke that pain again."

Which brings me to my take. Since when do the Republicans own that day? I spent the morning on the phone frantically trying to get through to my friends who live in Manhattan. I will never forget it. My friend Shafer worked on Wall Street at the time and saw the planes hit from 2 blocks away. My wife and I ate outside at a restaurant for what we thought might be the last time in a long time since we were hearing reports of chemical attacks. Anthrax was just around the corner (terror-free since 9/11 on Bush's watch? uh -not so much). It scared the hell out of all of us. And rightly so.

But adults, when confronted with fear, think things through and act rationally rather than lashing about blindly and causing more chaos and destruction than they had hoped to avoid. They don't invade countries which pose only a theoretical threat to us and vow to stay indefinitely. They don't roll back the bill of rights in the name of safety. Yet the Republican party did just that in the years following 9/11. We've actually been told by administration spokesman that the answer to the question of whether the President could order a terrorist's child's testicles crushed would depend on why the President thought it was necessary to order that.

This sort of cheap exploitation and fear-mongering is one of the many reasons I will never call myself a Republican. That John McCain and the myriad people who would have had to green light this did so means there's nothing they won't do, no taboo they won't violate, to gain and hold power. McCain has transformed from a man who called Jerry Falwell an agent of intolerance to one who kissed his ring to get Falwell's blessing for the GOP nod in 2008. And now he's apparently not above using more than 3000 dead Americans as props in a John McCain campaign infocommercial.

I think I'd pose this as a political rule (just like Godwin's Law) - if a party decides to fear-monger to the point of using footage of mass murder, they've lost the debate (reference - the 2008 Republican National Convention). And tonight the GOP lost the debate.

They've got nothing left. Just fear and tax cuts. So you can't blame 'em, I guess. But you can vote for the other guy instead.

In a Nutshell

2008-08-08T14:43:00.008-04:00

The past 28 years summarized in a single cartoon.

Prediction

2007-12-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

GOP pundits and politicians love to point out that there hasn't been a successful terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 (that last part is essential since it destroys the argument if it's left out). This is, they say, due to George W. Bush's masterful prosecution of the War on Terror. Some even go as far as to say that invading Iraq was proven correct after the fact because of this. IMO, this is a really simplistic way of rationalizing bad ideas. But that's not the point of this post.

My prediction is simple. Assuming a Democrat takes the White House and presides over a similar absence of terrorist attacks on US soil until their term ends, the same people will call it a coincidence or luck.

It's just how they work.

Unfinished Business

2006-11-09T17:16:00.000-05:00

Now that the dust has settled and the Democrats are decorating their new offices and putting in their custom gavel orders, there's one bit of rhetoric from the pre-election period that I'd like to see revisited.

During the last days of the campaign the administration and its surrogates tried aggressively to drive home the message that a vote for Democrats is a vote for the terrorists. Bush himself put it like this "[if Democrats win,] the terrorists win and America loses". I'd really like to see someone follow up on this with Mr. Bush. Did "the terrorists" win on Tuesday, or was this a bunch of bullshit rhetoric?

I forgot what it feels like...

2006-11-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

...to have people you think are right (or at least sane - depends on the issue) win an election. I didn't make predictions this time because mine from 2004 were way off and I still had a fear that Democrats would once again grab defeat from the jaws of victory, but it's good to see that the Democrats beat expectations and are positioned to put the brakes on an administration that has been used to getting whatever it wanted since 2001 (and especially since 9/11). It's also nice to see that right-wingers like Rick Santorum, Katherine Harris, George Felix "macaca" Allen, and Curt Weldon were sent packing.

I'm still stuck with a right-winger in the form of Ric Keller in my own district, but thankfully he's going to be on the wrong side of the aisle for at least the next two years.

Eavesdropping

2006-02-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

It's a simple debate, although not the one Bush and Co. are trying to make it. It's not about whether we should listen in on terrorists - of course we should. And if you think the FISA court (which has denied < 1% of the tens of thousands of warrant requests it's received since its inception) would disagree, you're obviously someone who thinks Sean Hannity is a great thinker (and you probably also believe him when he tells you that the people who revealed the "terrorist surveillance program" are traitors).

It's about whether the President has to follow the rules - one of the truly revolutionary concepts our founders came up with. There's a law and it gives the government up to three days to get the paperwork together after it starts wiretapping. So emergencies or "ticking time bombs" or any other wild hypothetical that doesn't involve a time machine is not a justification for going around the law. They complain about paperwork, but you'd think that if they can spend 1/4 million at one of their staged photo-ops, they'd have enough money to pay enough people so all the paperwork got filled out and everything was within the law. But they Bush have decided to ignore that law. And who ignores the law, rather than petition the goddamn LEGISLATURE to change it? Kings. Dictators. Despots. Fucking Saddam Hussein for chrissakes.

Worse yet, the Bushies have decided that the law doesn't say what it clearly says - that unless there's a warrant it's illegal to listen in on US citizens' conversations.

And if you don't believe that they'll feed you a line about how the authorization to respond to 9/11 says what it clearly doesn't - that warrantless wiretapping was something Congress endorsed, nevermind that it wasn't something they even considered when they passed the bill.

And if you still don't agree? Then they'll argue that the Constitution itself gives the President powers that it clearly doesn't - essentially the power to act without interference from any other branch of government in "wartime" (nevermind the part about how the President shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed). I'd mention how they're defining "wartime" as the next 20+ years, but that's another rant entirely.

And if you're a person with a functioning brain who calls BS on the above, I'm sure their legal team is working hard parsing the Magna Carta, the 10 commandments, and Hammurabi's code for a last-ditch argument that what they're doing is legal.

It's simple. Bush. Has. Broken. The. Law. Repeatedly over the last 4 years. He proudly admits it, declares that he will continue to do so, and dares Congress to do anything about it.

It's time for our representatives to show the same outrage about this they've shown about the ceding of port security to a foreign government. It's time for somebody to tell our spoiled, entitled, never-earned-a-goddamn-thing-he's-been-given-in-his-life President something he's not used to hearing. He'll rant and rave and pratter on about security and terrorism, even call those who stand up for the Constitution and the rule of the law traitors, but they have to stand firm.

It's time for somebody to tell George W. Bush NO.

Knocking Down Strawmen, 10 at a time

2005-11-22T15:52:00.000-05:00

The Daou report has a handy and oh-so-reasoned rebuttal to the 10 most commonly-used arguments in support of Bush's war in Iraq. I'd recommend you (all 3 of you) check out the whole thing at Salon.

(Finally) Back from Voting

2004-11-02T13:36:00.000-05:00

After waiting in line for nearly 2 hours (at 10 AM, no less), it's over. Between my wife and I we've added two to Kerry's final vote tally, and hopefully did our part to defeat Bush crony Mel Martinez in his bid to replace Bob Graham in the Senate.

Turnout was huge, which is of course good news for Democrats. I can't imagine what the wait will be after 5, when everyone is off work and trying to get in line before the 7 PM deadline. I'm glad we took care of it (relatively) early.

Now it's all over but the shouting. Given my predictions this morning, the energy on the left, and the high turnout I mentioned, I don't think the extended election of 2000 will be repeated. As some right wing crank's book title puts it - if it isn't close, they can't steal it. That said, I'm ready to join the fight if any FL2k-esque shenanigans ensue tomorrow.

In summary - still optimistic, but now with even more reason to be than I had before.

The disastrous Bush II term is about to come to an end. Can you smell it?

Election Morning

2004-11-02T08:23:00.000-05:00

I couldn't sleep - I've been up mainlining blog and news coverage since about 6.

In an hour or so my wife and I will head to the polls to cast our votes for Kerry. I can't shake the feeling that the disappointment in our nation and its institutions with which I've been living since the moment nearly 4 years ago when a crooked Supreme Court stopped counting votes and declared GW Bush the winner of the 2000 election is about to end. I'm optimistic - more so than I've been at any point in this race.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow we'll be talking about President-elect Kerry. It will be nice to have a guy in the big chair that I can be proud of again. For me it's never been ABB (Anybody But Bush) - I've been touting Kerry since shortly after the 2000 election. It'll also be nice to start calling that guy the President again, something I have yet to call Gov. Bush since I still maintain he does not legitimately hold the office he's occupied for the past 4 years.

Anyway, enough rambling. What would an election day post be without a prediction which will come back to haunt me or make me famous if it's prescient? Here goes...

Electoral college: a decisive Kerry win with 285-290 (I haven't actually used an electoral calculator so I'm not sure what the exact total would be), with a small outside chance of a 300+ landslide. Kerry will need to win 3 or 4 of Bush's "must win" states to accomplish this, but I'm confident he will (for reasons listed below).

Popular vote: Kerry wins a clear majority, by at least 3%, with Nader lucky to pickup 1%. So that would mean Kerry 51%, Bush 48%, Nader 1%.

Congress: a mixed bag here. I think there's a good chance the Democrats retake the Senate, and I'm predicting a final balance of 52-48 in their favor. Specific races: Betty Castor wins against Bush crony Mel Martinez in FL, and Joe Hoeffel knocks Arlen Specter out of the Pennsylvania delegation, making the creepy homophobe Rick Santorum the senior Senator from that state.

In the House, I don't see the Democrats winning back control, but I think they'll pickup enough seats to even things out a bit more. Final tally: GOP up by 3-4 seats. I've heard Tom Delay is having a tough time with his reelection, and so I'll go out on a limb and say that the Hammer will be sent back to squashing bugs today. I'll also predict that Katherine Harris (R-vote stealer), one of the architects of the 2000 Florida mess (I'm sure it was nice to have your Florida campaign chair in charge of counting the votes in the state which decided the election), will be defeated.

Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I think all the factors are moving in Kerry and the Democrats' favor. The left is definitely more energized, Nader is marginalized, from what I've seen the polls are oversampling Republicans (and still show a tie), and the number of people who are planning to vote just to oust Bush may be enough to make a Kerry victory decisive. Is everyone who's going to vote for Kerry a huge supporter? No. But I would venture that the same could have been said of Clinton in 1992, and he ended up being the most successful Democratic President since FDR.

In any case, I'm really revved up about this election. In the worst case the left has managed to build up a pretty impressive infrastructure after being smacked around for the past 10 years (impeachment, endless "gates" which went nowhere, Florida recount mess, Bush running one of the most secretive administrations in history and managing to bungle the economy, not to mention domestic and foreign policies with little effective opposition), so if things don't go as well as I predicted there will be an apparatus in place for future elections and to challenge what I can confidently predict will be a disastrous second Bush term (I still cringe at the thought of 4 more years of these people when they don't have to worry about re-election).

I guess that's it. I'll post later and reveal how many of my predictions were borne out.

Dissent == Treason, Part the XXIV

2004-10-02T02:59:00.000-04:00

At first, it was a lone representative from Oklahoma.

If George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election.

This time, it's according to the GOP leadership.

Here's Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

[terrorists] are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry.

And here he is on Fox News:

[Democrats are] consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there

According to John Thune, who's running to replace Tom Daschle...

His [Daschle's] words embolden the enemy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the man who's #2 in line to run our government:

On Saturday, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) said at a GOP fundraiser: "I don't have data or intelligence to tell me one thing or another, [but] I would think they would be more apt to go [for] somebody who would file a lawsuit with the World Court or something rather than respond with troops." Asked whether he believed al Qaeda would be more successful under a Kerry presidency, Hastert said: "That's my opinion, yes."

It's not just Congress, either. From Bush's own inner circle:

The previous day in Warsaw, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said terrorists in Iraq "are trying to influence the election against President Bush."

(source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45672-2004Sep23?language=printer)

Remember when every Democrat had to denounce the MoveOn ad submission comparing Bush to Hitler (this despite the ad not even getting enough votes to make it to the final competition)? This isn't one person making a ridiculous statement. This is the Republican leadership speaking on the record, and saying that to oppose Bush makes you a traitor.

If we had a liberal media, every Republican on television in the next two weeks (minimum) would be forced to say that this is out of line and wrong. But we don't, so they won't.

Here's my analogy to illustrate how mind-bogglingly stupid this is. We all agree that breathing is essential. The GOP insists that the only way to do this is through the mouth. Democrats counter that the nose might actually be more effective, and in fact has the side benefit of filtering inhaled toxins and germs. The GOP's response? "The Democrats are against breathing."

It continues to amaze me that these people are taken seriously by anyone.

Swift Boat Veterans vs. Truth: Truth 1, Veterans 0

2004-08-11T02:02:00.000-04:00

In case you haven't heard, one of the co-authors of the anti-Kerry book/smear job Unfit for Command posts frequently to that bastion of sunshie, freerepublic.com (media matters has the skinny):

Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

Corsi on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"

And the AP has picked it up at long last (here). These two paragraphs sum it up.

"President Bush (news - web sites) should immediately condemn this sleazy book written by a virulent anti-Catholic bigot. It says something about the smear campaign against John Kerry that it has stooped to enlist a hatemonger," said [Kerry] campaign spokesman Chad Clanton.

Calls to the Bush-Cheney campaign were not immediately returned."

Every campaign features some less-than-desirables (for the candidates, at least) from both sides. These people should be condemned by both campaigns (and we're halfway there now!), and the media shouldn't take anyone with this sort of axe to grind seriously. But this is the real world, so I guess I just have to keep dreaming

The Independent Weekly: With trembling fingers

2004-05-20T13:46:00.000-04:00

This is the most powerful and eloquent critique I've read yet of GW Bush.

Killer excerpt (italics mine):

I don't think it's accurate to describe America as polarized between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives. It's polarized between the people who believe George Bush and the people who do not. Thanks to some contested ballots in a state governed by the president's brother, a once-proud country has been delivered into the hands of liars, thugs, bullies, fanatics and thieves. The world pities or despises us, even as it fears us. What this election will test is the power of money and media to fool us, to obscure the truth and alter the obvious, to hide a great crime against the public trust under a blood-soaked flag.

(via Pandagon, via Politics and War)

Do I Have "Sucker" Written On My Forehead?

2004-05-18T23:48:00.000-04:00

In the past two days, I have had two attempts at what can only be called fraud sent to my email account. One claiming to be from eBay looking to update my account - all they needed was my login and password, and one claiming to be from Fleet Bank (a bank, I need to add, with which I have no relationship whatsoever) asking for my debit account number, expiration date, and PIN.

Being the dutiful Boy Scout I am, I decided to do my part to track down the perpetrators of these two really lame scams. I had mixed results.

eBay: I went to their support page, and was able to very easily find an address where I could forward the entire offending email, headers and all, for their further investigative use. After doing so, I received not one but two emails within the next 20 minutes; the first explaining that my email had been received and the second advising that I was indeed the target of an attempted scam, with instructions as to what to do if I had foolishly divulged any account information to the perpetrators. Assured they had the matter well in hand, I moved on to a large banking conglomerate, which one would think would have in place a method for dealing with this sort of thing as well.

Fleet: ...I was mistaken. I went to Fleet's website, and after clicking on the link advising users about email scams (fairness: this was in a prominent position on the front page), after the obligatory DON'T GIVE THEM ANYTHING warning, along with a link to click on if I had divulged any private info, I was advised to call a 1-800 number to report the incident. So I did. The voicemail system didn't provide a clear method to report an incident like this, so I went for good old '0' for an operator. After reclassifying my call as "none of the above", I finally talked to a very nice lady who asked me for my account number. I explained my situation, and asked to be directed to the fraud department. She informed me that there was no such thing. While a bit taken aback that a bank didn't have a fraud department, I pressed on: "Can I forward this to someone who can track the senders down?" I asked. No - she informed me, but she would be happy to get the details of the email and send them to her supervisor. So I ran down the contents of the email with her, including the text of the link the scammer included, and the actual address it linked to. She took down all of this information (I assume) and assured me that she'd get it to someone with more authority than her.

When comparing a dot-com business vs. an "old" economy powerhouse, who is better equipped to handle modern-day fraud? The answer, not surprisingly, is the "new" economy whipper-snapper, eBay. I give Fleet credit for trying to adapt and having people work the phones through the night (which I'm sure eBay doesn't have at 11:30PM), but for this sort of problem, eBay definitely shined. Maybe calls like mine will prompt Fleet to move into the new world of customer service.

Media does matter

2004-05-16T11:37:00.000-04:00

In case you didn't know (and if you're not a political junkie like me, chances are you didn't), David Brock, the former right-wing muckraker behind many of the anti-Clinton "scandals"/fabrications of the American Spectator in the 1990s, has set up a media criticism site which looks primarily at the conservative media from a leftist viewpoint.

You see, somewhere amidst the constant slime being flung at Clinton during his presidency (much of it originating with Mr. Brock), Brock decided that the people he was associating with didn't care about what the truth was, or even about the effect that what they were doing had on the country. They were only interested in one thing - winning at any cost. So he left. Afterwards, he published his own account (Blinded by the Right)of his time as a cog in the right-wing smear machine. This site is the next step in his full repudiation of his former self and associates.

His latest target is Rush Limbaugh's comparison of the Iraqi prison torture to a frat hazing, among other things. He's even going to run a commercial contrasting Rumsfeld's testimony ("fundamentally un-American") with Rush's ("You ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of needing to blow some steam off?")

I know it isn't news that Rush is an insensitive windbag who remains on the air only because the rubes who take him seriously vote Republican (and by Damp-Rid and the various baldness cures and get rich quick schemes advertised on his show), but rarely is his tendency to minimize anything which could hurt someone with an (R) after their name on display so clearly.

Check out the rest of the site too (www.mediamatters.org) - he's doing good work since he saw the light.

For Everybody Who's Down on Kerry

2004-05-07T11:10:00.000-04:00

I found this op-ed a good read.

It points out that Kerry's been fairly consistent on Iraq - it's Bush who's moved from unyielding unilateralism to acknowledging that maybe the UN isn't as useless as he insisted it was before giving the rest of the world the finger and doing what he damn well pleased in Iraq.

The considerable irony here is that Kerry has maintained the same position on the war since he voted to authorize our intervention back in the fall of 2002: in favor of ousting Saddam Hussein but insisting we needed the backing and aegis of the United Nations and NATO to have the troop strength and legitimacy required to rebuild the nation. The flip-flopper on Iraq has been George W. Bush, who was single-minded when it came to getting Hussein but whose views on controlling postwar Iraq have gone from a truculent unilateralism to a Kerry-esque acknowledgement that we need the United Nations to run the place until an Iraqi government can assume sovereignty.

(from the Washington Post)

Why isn't Gene Lyons a milliionaire?

2004-04-28T23:11:00.000-04:00

Gene Lyons nails it.

My summary:
Question: Why all the quibbling about John Kerry's Vietnam record from the Bush camp?
Answer: Because when it comes to actual sacrifice for your country, not to mention having the courage of your convictions and the flexibility to change them, Bush isn't fit to shine John Kerry's shoes.

Holdover

2004-04-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

This is a post I wrote on another political forum that I felt the need to share.

This is one of my many stabs at the "shorter" style, where you satirize an article (or anything, really) by summarizing it in one sentence or two. For much better examples of this style, some of which even have current relevance, check here: Right here.

Shorter version of Ann Coulter's pathetic defense of Rush Limbaugh's drug abuse (Link expired, check Townhall):

"It's perfectly fine to be addicted to a legal drug, even if you obtain it illegally, as long as it was prescribed to you at some point. It's not the slightest bit hypocritical to defend someone I know and support for something I'd be having apoplectic fits over if the person in question had a (D) after their name. Also, since I can't write a column or make a point without mentioning it: Monica Lewinsky. Chappaquiddick for good measure, and Monica, Monica.""

It never ceases to amaze me how many people who make a living shaking their finger at the rest of us turn out to be projecting.

Sick

2004-04-07T11:27:00.000-04:00

Anyone who says corporations are overtaxed is lying.

"More than 60% of U.S. corporations didn't pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared, Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported, citing the investigative arm of Congress." (attribution)

That's zero tax. Must be nice.

1 Leg vs. 2 Legs - "What's the difference?"

2004-04-06T23:40:00.000-04:00

Well, it turns out that the "ironclad proof" of an Iraq/AQ association may be "no longer operative".

"Senior U.S. officials told CNN on Tuesday that they now believe fugitive terrorism suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not have a leg amputated in Iraq, as the Bush administration had previously said.

Although the administration pointed to Iraq's medical assistance to al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime, it's now believed that al-Zarqawi still has both legs." (attribution)

I think the turning point is long past. The public isn't going to trust these people on matters of war any more. And if they're smart, the rest will soon follow.

A Question of Focus

2004-04-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

From Newsday:

"I really don't care what Condi Rice has to say.

I ignore the yarn the White House national security adviser spins about the level of concern the Bush team had about the terrorist threat from al-Qaida during its first months in office.

Because Rice isn't president of the United States. George W. Bush is. And so we must read his lips.

Here is what those lips said publicly about al-Qaida between Jan. 1, 2001, just before Bush was sworn in as president, and Sept. 10, 2001: Nothing."

The whole thing is worth a read, but here are the bullet points.

References to terrorism in general: 24

References to fighting terrorism using the phantom missile shield: 8

References to Al Quaeda: 0

Compared to the administration's real priorities:

References to tax cuts: 81

References to the inheritance tax: 54

References to health care: 62

This would not be an issue if the Bushies didn't continue to insist (against all available evidence) that they were indeed focused on international terrorism in general and Al Quaeda in particular before 9/11/2001. But that would involve an admission that they didn't do exactly the right thing in that period, and that is something these people just don't do.

Daschle Redeemed

2004-03-30T20:51:00.000-05:00

After reading the following statement, posted here in full, I hereby take back every negative thing I ever said about the Minority Leader. (source)

"Mr. President, last week I spoke about the White House's reaction to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9-11 Commission. I am compelled to rise again today, because the people around the President are systematically abusing the powers and prerogatives of government.

We all need to reflect seriously on what's going on. Not in anger and not in partisanship, but in keeping with our responsibilities as Senators and with an abiding respect for the fundamental values of our democracy.

Richard Clarke did something extraordinary when he testified before the 9-11 Commission last week. He didn't try to escape blame, as so many routinely do. Instead, he accepted his share of responsibility and offered his perceptions about what happened in the months and years leading up to September 11.

We can and should debate the facts and interpretations Clarke has offered. But there can be no doubt that he has risked enormous damage to his reputation and professional future to hold both himself and our government accountable.

The retaliation from those around the President has been fierce. Mr. Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged. He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given, but that wasn't the point. The point was to have the perjury accusation on television and in the newspapers. The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible.

This is wrong–and it's not the first time it's happened.

When Senator McCain ran for President, the Bush campaign smeared him and his family with vicious, false attacks. When Max Cleland ran for reelection to this Senate, his patriotism was attacked. He was accused of not caring about protecting our nation -- a man who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, accused of being indifferent to America's national security. That was such an ugly lie, it's still hard to fathom almost two years later.

There are some things that simply ought not be done – even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed. When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that the White House was thinking about an Iraq War in its first weeks in office, his former colleagues in the Bush Administration ridiculed him from morning to night, and even subjected him to a fruitless federal investigation.

When Larry Lindsay, one of President Bush's former top economic advisors, and General Eric Shinseki, the former Army Chief of Staff, spoke honestly about the amount of money and the number of troops the war would demand, they learned the hard way that the White House doesn't tolerate candor.

This is not "politics as usual." In nearly all of these cases, it's not Democrats who are being attacked.

Senator McCain and Secretary O'Neill are prominent Republicans, and Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay, Joe Wilson, and Eric Shinseki all worked for Republican Administrations.

The common denominator is that these government officials said things the White House didn't want said.

The response from those around the President was retribution and character assassination -- a 21st Century twist to the strategy of "shooting the messenger."

If it takes intimidation to keep inconvenient facts from the American people, the people around the President don't hesitate. Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, found that out. He was told he'd be fired if he told the truth about the cost of the Administration's prescription drug plan.

This is no way to run a government.

The White House and its supporters should not be using the power of government to try to conceal facts from the American people or to reshape history in an effort to portray themselves in the best light.

They should not be threatening the reputations and livelihoods of people simply for asking – or answering – questions. They should seek to put all information about past decisions on the table for evaluation so that the best possible decisions can be made for the nation's future.

In Mr. Clarke's case, clear and troubling double standards are being applied.

Last year, when the Administration was being criticized for the President's misleading statement about Niger and uranium, the White House unexpectedly declassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate. When the Administration wants to bolster its public case, there is little that appears too sensitive to be declassified.

Now, people around the President want to release parts of Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony in 2002. According to news reports, the CIA is already working on declassifying that testimony – at the Administration's request.

And last week several documents were declassified literally overnight, not in an effort to provide information on a pressing policy matter to the American people, but in an apparent effort to discredit a public servant who gave 30 years of service to his American government.

I'll support declassifying Mr. Clarke's testimony before the Joint Inquiry, but the Administration shouldn't be selective. Consistent with our need to protect sources and methods, we should declassify his entire testimony.

And to make sure that the American people have access to the full record as they consider this question, we should also declassify his January 25 memo to Dr. Rice, the September 4, 2001 National Security Directive dealing with terrorism, Dr. Rice's testimony to the 9-11 Commission, the still-classified 28 pages from the House-Senate inquiry relating to Saudi Arabia, and a list of the dates and topics of all National Security Council meetings before September 4, 2001.

I hope this new interest in openness will also include the Vice President's Energy and Terrorism Task Forces. While much, if not all, of what these task forces discussed was unclassified, their proceedings have not been shared with the public.

There also seems to be a double standard when it comes to investigations.

In recent days leading congressional Republicans are now calling for an investigation into Mr. Clarke. As I mentioned earlier, Secretary O'Neill was also subjected to an investigation. Clarke and O'Neill sought legal and classification review of any information in their books before they were published.

Nonetheless, our colleagues tell us these two should be investigated, at the same time there has been no Senate investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a deep cover CIA agent; no thorough investigation into whether leading Administration officials misrepresented the intelligence regarding threats posed by Iraq; no Senate hearings into the threat the chief Medicare Actuary faced for trying to do his job; and no Senate investigation into the reports of continued overcharging by Halliburton for its work in Iraq.

There is a clear double standard when it comes to investigating or releasing information, and that's just is not right. The American people deserve more from their leaders.

We're seeing it again now in the shifting reasons the White House has given for Dr. Rice's refusal to testify under oath and publicly before the 9-11 Commission.

The people around the President first said it would be unprecedented for Dr. Rice to testify. But thanks to the Congressional Research Service, we now know that previous sitting National Security Advisors have testified before Congress.

Now the people around the President are saying that Dr. Rice can't testify because it would violate an important constitutional principle: the separation of powers.

We will soon face this debate again when it comes time for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to meet with the 9-11 Commission. I believe they should lift the limitations they have placed on their cooperation with the Commission and be willing to appear before the entire Commission for as much time as the Commission deems productive.

The all-out assault on Richard Clarke has gone on for more than a week now. Mr. Clarke has been accused of "profiteering" and possible perjury. It is time for this to stop.

The Commission should declassify Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony. All of it. Not just the parts the White House wants. And Dr. Rice should testify before the 9-11 Commission, and she should be under oath and in public.

The American people deserve to know the truth -- the full truth -- about what happened in the years and months leading up to September 11.

Senator McCain, Senator Cleland, Secretary O'Neill, Ambassador Wilson, General Shinseki, Richard Foster, Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay ... when will the character assassination, retribution, and intimidation end?

When will we say enough is enough?

The September 11 families – and our entire country – deserve better. Our democracy depends on it. And our nation's future security depends on it."

Clarke, In His Own Words

2004-03-29T17:57:00.000-05:00

Salon has a very well-done Joe Conason interview with Richard Clarke, in which he responds to some of the charges being thrown his way by the Bush administration and its various flunkies in the press.

The whole thing is worth reading, and in an unusual step, Salon's offering it free of ads/charge.

Here's a taste:

"[Salon]: Did you speak up about the U.S. going into Iraq? Now, one of the more substantive criticisms of you by the White House is that you didn't say anything about it. You let that go, you kept your job and didn't resign in protest -- or according to them, do anything that suggested you were so strongly opposed to their plan for war.

[Clarke]: If they were listening, they would have heard me. I started saying on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 that their idea of responding to the terrorist attacks by going to war with Iraq was not only misplaced but counterproductive.

Before Sept. 11, I was so frustrated with the way they were handling terrorism that I had asked to be reassigned to a different job. And the job I proposed was a job I helped to create -- a job to look at the nation's vulnerability to cyber-attack. So that job was supposed to be one that I went into on Oct. 1 [2001]; the actual transfer was delayed, of course, because Sept. 11 intervened. But it's important to realize that I asked for that transfer out of the counterterrorism job before Sept. 11, out of frustration with the Bush administration's handling of terrorism."

Response

2004-03-26T19:20:00.000-05:00

(Preface: please assume for a moment that I have a lot of readers, and there is an active comments section. Then the following will make sense.)

Addryc in comments writes about "the way they are blanketing Richard Clarke right now - they have a good knack of getting together to try and discredit things like this".

While he makes a good point - Bush & Co. are very good at changing the focus to their accusers - I think in this case Clarke doesn't have much to worry about.

So far, every line of attack the Bushies have used has been deflated.

"He was incompetent" - then why was he kept on in 2001?
"He didn't have any power" - then why has just about everything he recommended been done?
"He's a Democratic hit-man" - then why did he vote for Bush in 2000?
"He's looking for a job in Kerry's administration" - then why did he deny it under oath?

and my favorite

"He's friends with Democrat Rand Beers" - so fucking what? I have plenty of Republican friends and that doesn't mean I'm a shill for the BFEE (homage to Bartcop). Since when do your friends determine what your political beliefs (and in this case, your public pronouncements) are?

He's said pretty much everything under oath that he said in his book. And his heartfelt nationally televised mea culpa (summary: "We failed you, and I apologize") definitely didn't hurt him in the court of public opinion.

Not to mention the contrast between Condoleezza Rice hiding behind executive privilege and refusing to testify under oath versus Clarke standing up for what he's alleged while under oath.

I think the current brouhaha will mark the turning point for this administration and hopefully for this election. Once people stop trusting a politician, that's pretty much it, and nobody paying attention has any reason to trust this man and his cohorts any longer.

Who Said What, When

2004-03-16T15:58:00.000-05:00

Via Atrios (who else?), I learned that there is now a searchable database on the House Govt. Reform Committee's website (thanks to Congressman Henry Waxman) which catalogs in excruciating detail the misleading and simply false statements by Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice regarding Iraq.

There's an accompanying PDF which outlines the methodology (e.g.: statements untrue in hindsight were not included) and summarizes who was the worst on each subject area. It even includes graphs showing the number of misleading statements by month, person, and subject.

Definitely worth a look. It's here

An incredibly accurate summary

2004-03-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

of the problem with politics in the US:

test post to the feed

2004-02-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Feed me!

Not a big fan, but...

2004-02-26T22:39:00.000-05:00

Rosie O'Donnell just got married. I really don't think she's funny, and I could care less whether she plays for the "my team" instead of the visitors, but this is incredibly relevant to the gay marriage issue.

She was recently sued by her employer, and that puts the focus on why the rights, not the nomenclature, are what are really at issue here: http://www.signorile.com/articles/nyp107.html

All other viewpoints (religious and political especially) aside, this really hits the central argument - are homosexual couples entitled to the same rights that heterosexual couples are? We're not talking about religion here - every religion is fully within its rights to exclude anybody they decide - for example, 27 year old white longhaired stunningly handsome programmers from Florida. That's not the issue here.

The real question: is the government in the business of deciding who matters and who doesn't? Who deserves this pile of rights over here and who doesn't? Which of us are, to quote Animal Farm, "more equal than others"?. Should testimony given to a close-as-possible confidante (which whether you agree with gay marriage or not, gay couples are to each other) in a gay relationship enjoy the same legal protection that it would if you were involved in a heterosexual relationship?

Excerpt:

"Would the media giant Gruner & Jahr have decided to sue Rosie O’Donnell over the downfall of Rosie magazine if same-sex marriage were legal? Bizarre as it might sound, Rosie believes the answer is no, and her explanation is both fascinating and plausible.
“If you are a heterosexual talk show host and you’re sued by a major corporation, anything you have said to your husband is privileged information,” she said in an interview on my radio program on Sirius OutQ. She was referring to two rights of marriage that few of us ever think about—until we’re sued for $100 million, or brought to court for something far more minor. One is the spousal immunity privilege, which, if you watch enough Law & Order or The Practice, you know means that, in general, a husband cannot be compelled to testify against his wife and vice versa. The other is known as the privilege for marital communications, which protects confidential correspondence between spouses. These are just two of hundreds of rights granted by marriage—rights that gay couples don’t have.

“If you are a homosexual talk show host,” O’Donnell continued, “and you’re sued by a corporation, anything you have ever said and/or written to your spouse/partner/wife is allowed to be entered into the record. It is totally unfair.”

She believes that Gruner & Jahr’s lawyers were well aware of that inequity and exploited it to their advantage.

“Any and every thing I wrote to [my partner] Kelli, you know, which they were using against me, some of my essays—you know, when you get into a deep, dark place and you say, ‘You know what honey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Well, if the honey is the same sex as you, that is evidence in a trial, and that’s hard to believe in America ... . And if they didn’t have access to some of those letters I wrote to Kelli, I don’t think they would have sued me. Because, innately, what they were thinking was that I would rather give them money than show the truth of my darkest part to America ... .” "

George W. Bush says no. I say definitely.

This is about more than gay/straight, left/right, Bush/Kerry. This is about encouraging monogamy, which is one of the things the apoplectic fit crowd claims to be for.

One of the many reasons why I back John Kerry

2004-02-22T16:43:00.000-05:00

He's not going to back down when the chickenhawks attack his commitment to defense:.

“I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did. I'm tired of Republicans trying to divert attention from the real issues -- here in Georgia you've lost 70.000 jobs, you've got 1.3 million Georgians without health insurance -- and that's what this race should be about. These are the real issues they should be willing to talk about instead of engaging in the politics of fear and questioning our commitment to fighting for the country we fought for in uniform.

“One way or another we're going to have a debate about the future not the past. We’re not going to let them make this about a war 34 years ago, when we need to talk about the war today.

"Republicans like to question the patriotism of Democrats who question the direction of our nation. They put Max Cleland in an ad with Osama bin Laden to question his commitment to the defense of our country. This President came to Georgia to campaign for Saxby Chambliss and didn't say a word about it. Now his surrogates are at it again. Well, I don't think that politics of fear has any place in our country, and I'm still waiting for the Republicans to tell me what more Max Cleland has to leave on the battlefield of Vietnam to prove his commitment to our country."

Pretty much, it's a great big middle finger and a challenge to anybody in the GOP (especially it's chickenhawk leadership: Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Lott, etc.) to "come get some", to quote Ash in the Evil Dead series. If they want to make this about whose patriotism is the biggest, let's count battlefield wounds and be done with it.

This sort of absolute crap needs to be countered exactly like this - quickly, forcefully, and without any sense of tolerance - and should have been countered by Gore in 2000 when they alloed Bush to successfully deflate his war credentials then.

I'm energized, and I can't wait for the Kerry/Bush debates.

I feel my grip on reality slipping...

2004-02-04T02:54:00.000-05:00

Heh heh heh.

I just started playing Star Wars Galaxies. Background for the uninitiated: this is essentially an online world. You assume an identity in the Star Wars world, set shortly after the end of the original movie. The game is always going and people just pop in and out

My buddy Steve (mmogwitterings in the blogroll to the right) hooked me up with a free week, during which time I've managed to get my wookie marksman/scout about a third of the way toward bounty hunter, which I'm told is the longest road in the game - leave it to me to pick the hardest path. I suppose the end result of my path will be hunting Jedi, although that's a long way off from where I am now.

During the week I got hooked, which I guess is the point of giving away a week. So tomorrow I'm headed to the local Best Buy to pick up my very own copy and see what a month is like.

Anyway, if anybody's on the Eclipse server, give a shout to Vaargh, and I'll swing by and we can go hit some missions or "visit the beautiful fountains of Naboo" or - something. Still figuring this MMOG thing out, but it's pretty fun so far.

If this is a "liberal" media...

2004-02-04T02:44:00.000-05:00

I shudder to think what a conservative media looks like. (info via future blogging hall of fame inductees - pandagon)

Those "liberals" at the Washington Post are at it again.

Say you're a newspaper editor. There's a new book critical of GWB that needs to be reviewed. Do you assign a nonpartisan reviewer, somebody without an ax to grind, to the task? A professional book reviewer maybe?

Not if you're the editor of the Washington Post. If you're him, you assign the review to James Pinkerton and neglect to mention the fact that he's a right-wing columnist who "worked in the White House under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and also in the 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 Republican presidential campaigns," practically guaranteeing this hatchet job.

"Liberal media" my Aunt Sally. And before anyone among the three or four regular readers asks, I don't have an Aunt Sally. The fact of the matter is that among my six aunts there is not a single name y that fits well into this sentence, where x is anything: x, my Aunt y. So I picked a better y than the sampling group. Sue me.

Franken Attacks Dean Heckler?

2004-01-27T10:06:00.000-05:00

This morning I was sent this article by a right-wing friend of mine.

From the NY Post...: "January 27, 2004 -- EXETER, N.H. - Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean."

It sounds like the real deal, but the NY Post always screams "tabloid crap" to me, and I found out that it came to him by way of the fact-challenged Drudge Report, so I looked around to make sure.

I haven't been able to find any references to this incident at any real news sites - CNN, NY Times, Wash. Post, MSNBC, etc. Even the major paper in the area, the Concord Monitor, doesn't have anything on it.

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I smell a smear.

One of the Brightest Solar Flares Ever

2003-12-30T12:35:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite pic from the previous article.

Because I Like Space

2003-12-30T12:26:00.000-05:00

This article (Top 10 Astronomy Images) has links to the best space photos of 2003, supposedly one of the best ever for amateur astronomers.

"Seldom does astronomy enjoy a year with such avid and widespread amateur participation, from first-timers watching compelling sky events and photographing them, to a kid who stumped the experts with one remarkable picture that enthralled the media and the public around the world."

My Letter to the Kerry Campaign

2003-12-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

Preface: For some time Sen. John Kerry has been my response when anyone asked me who I thought would be the best Democrat to beat GW Bush. Lately, I haven't been so sure of that. I wrote them the following letter explaining why and letting them know what could be done to regain my confidence and earn my financial and volunteer support.

To Whom It May Concern:

I have been watching Sen. Kerry's campaign with great interest since before he officially announced. Like many, I believed he would be the best man to go up against the disaster that is the current White House occupant. Today, I am not so sure.

With Gov. Dean's recent surge in the polls, the other Democratic candidates have begun a series of attacks on him that I'm sure Mr. Bush's svengali, Karl Rove, is very pleased with. Sadly, Sen. Kerry has joined this chorus. Make no mistake, I am not a Dean supporter, and I agree that the primaries are the appropriate time to define oneself against one's opponents; however, providing the incumbent with material for future attack ads against whomever the nominee is seems to me unnecessary. For example, the question at the most recent debate which asked all candidates who believed Gov. Dean could unseat Mr. Bush to raise their hands. Not a single one of the other candidates did so. Don't you people realize that that will be the first in a series of attack ads against Gov. Dean should he prevail in the primary?

I still believe that Sen. Kerry is the best person to go up against the unelected White House occupant and make him the first zero-term "President" ever. I'm sure all of you working for Sen. Kerry agree with me - you wouldn't be devoting your time and effort to the campaign otherwise. But the bottom line is this: I have considered donating to the Kerry campaign, but have held off until the primary draws near, mostly to make sure I don't regret any donation I make. Lately I don't like what I'm seeing.

A huge step toward gaining my steadfast financial and volunteer support would be for Sen. Kerry to state, clearly and unequivocally, that he believes two things. 1) That he or any of his primary opponents would be a vast improvement over the "leadership" of George W. Bush, and could in fact beat him, and 2) that he pledges to support the eventual Democratic nominee, whomever that may be. When these two things have occurred, I promise to donate my time and money generously to Sen. Kerry's campaign.

Please consider this request. I don't think it's extraordinary. Stop participating in the circular firing squad against the other candidates and start focusing on the larger goal, finding the best man to get GW out of the peoples' house. I know many Democrats feel as I do, so Sen. Kerry's campaign may depend upon it.

Regards,
Chris Myles
Programmer/Analyst
Orlando, Florida

"9/11 Could Have and Should Have Been Prevented."

2003-12-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

Who said that? Howard Dean? Nope. Thomas Kean. (hey, that rhymes...)

Via KOS comes this revelation:

"For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen.""

You think you've seen stonewalling by the Bushies so far? Just wait - they're going to do anything and everything to either prevent the report from coming to light, or make sure this swept under the rug ASAP.

Bill O'Reilly - Liar

2003-12-18T12:03:00.000-05:00

Claim: "We've outsold that guy [Franken] all over the place," O'Reilly claimed Monday on NBC's TODAY show. "We're running against Hillary for most copies of non-fiction books sold this year!" (from Drudge, so it must be true: here)

Fact: From USA Today, the figures show that overall, Sen. Clinton's book is #7 for the year. The #21 selling book this year is Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. O'Reilly's latest is #63. Just in nonfiction, Clinton is #3, Franken #5, and O'Reilly #6.

2003: A Year of Distortion for the American People

2003-12-15T15:06:00.000-05:00

That's the title of the Center for American Progress's annual wrap-up (found here).

It's a point-by-point rebuttal to the White House's 2003 summary.

Go read.

A Blog to Check Out

2003-12-12T12:33:00.000-05:00

My friend and colleage, Steve McGarrity, has setup a blog devoted to Massively Multiplayer Online games.

I don't play them myself, but that might change once World of Warcraft is release sometime next year. In any case, he's the guy I go to for all of my MMOG needs.

So check it out - he's played just about all of them and can help you sort the good from the mediocre from the bad before you pony up $20 a month for a subscription to a crappy game: http://mmogwitterings.blogspot.com/.

More fun with Google

2003-12-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

(via Atrios)

It worked for "miserable failure".

Now let's try unelectable.

I beg to differ

2003-12-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

Via conwebwatch, I see that according to "Christian film reviewer Ted Baehr," the South Park movie is "the most vile content in the history of mainstream moviemaking."

I'm sure this is exaggeration, but come on. Ever seen Pink Flamingoes? Selling babies ring a bell?

I'm sure I could come up with a dozen more with time, and none of them would even approach the humor that was the South Park movie.

Check out Terry's excellent post - it's about the proverbial shit-fit the conservative web is having over the fact that Comedy Central decided to show the movie uncut during Thanksgiving. (they showed it at 1AM EST, and anybody up that late needs to deal with it)

Wait No Longer!

2003-12-08T13:45:00.000-05:00

(from whitehouse.org) The winners of the first Civilian Warmonger Medals of Armchair Valor have been announced.

Winners are as follows.

Ann Coulter: "For spewing hate with gusto, and ignoring the irony that if it weren't for the feminists you so vocally despise, the only thing you'd be writing is grocery lists."
Sean Hannity: "...for being a younger, much cuter clone of Rush, sans the anal cysts!"

Dennis Miller, Bruce Willis, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton received awards as well.

Here at Last

2003-12-05T13:57:00.000-05:00

Not that a link from here will make much of a difference to their daily traffic, but the superlative pandagon.net has just released the long-awaited "20 Most Annoying Conservatives of 2003": find it here

A couple of surprises, but all of the people you'd expect are ably skewered. I really like the graphics this year, e.g.: O'Reilly as Wile E. Coyote (assholius professionarius).

Media Laziness

2003-12-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

There's no doubt that the press as a whole is lazy. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I'll list a few here.

Part of this is IMO due to the fact that the public as a whole doesn't expect much from them anymore, so we've gotten into a viscious cycle: the press performs poorly, people lower expectations, repeat.

Part of this (when it comes to political coverage, at least) is because most of the public doesn't really follow politics closely, so they can get away with covering every race as a horserace of dueling personalities rather than a contest of issues. A prime example of this was campaign 2000. The script said "Gore is smart guy, but he's a liar" and "Bush isn't too bright, but he's trustworthy". I'd bet 90% of the coverage of the campaign was to reinforce this script, rather than a less-sensational analysis of each man's actual positions.

Part of this is just human nature. It's much easier to repeat the conventional wisdom on an issue than it is to get in the weeds and track down knowledgeable people who might have a different take, or
actually contact the people involved and try to straighten everything out. An example of this was again the coverage of campaign 2000. During the first debate, Bush accused Gore of using "fuzzy math" when
Gore described Bush's tax plan as a giveaway to the rich. Rather than actually getting out a calculator and running the numbers, or better yet, giving the numbers to an economist or three and reporting their
findings, the coverage of this issue was essentially "Gore lies about Bush's tax plan". (it should also be noted that Gore's criticism was correct on the merits - the vast majority of the original Bush tax cuts went to people at the top end of the economic spectrum)

A huge part of this is the shift in the attitude of the news companies and their parent entities. In the past, it was pretty much a given that the news division of a media company would be a money sink. Nowadays, there is pressure for the news boys to pull their own weight, so therefore the focus becomes not so much what should be covered as what will get the most people to watch. Case in point: last month, the Michael Jackson perp walk bumped coverage of Bush's speech in England from Nightline, a supposedly "hard news" program.

I'm sure there are more, but this is just a quick rundown.

A consistently good analysis of press laziness and ineptitude when it comes to political coverage can be found at http://www.dailyhowler.com.

Virtual Currency Trading

2003-12-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

These people (http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/) have set up a currency trading market where you can trade money you've "earned" playing massively multiplayer online roleplaying games.

They have exchange rates for the various worlds (so far, just the Sims and Ultima Online, as well as There and SecondLife), and you can even get real-world $ for your online wealth (probably through PayPal). More games are coming (Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies), and they're also promising to expand into item and character auctions (sell yourself!). They aren't the even first site to do this, but you can get the idea from the above link.

At last - now you can spend all of your time online playing games, and when the [wife/girlfriend/parents/??] complain that you're wasting your time, you can point out you're actually making real money!

Open the floodgates!

2003-12-01T22:14:00.000-05:00

Atrios linked to me, thanks to the previous post. (Here's the link for the scrapbook :))

Thanks, big guy. This probably means tomorrow will be the highest traffic date in the history of this little blog. It also probably means it will be the highest traffic date in the future of this little blog as well, but a guy can dream, can't he?

Not that my contribution matters too much, but I've been sending people his way for almost a year now. Check it out if you have a minute or two - http://atrios.blogspot.com (assuming you don't read it regularly already, which is a bold assumption, since if you're a liberal and read blogs it's already on your daily must-read list).

Update: I've installed a counter to figure out just how much traffic this site actually gets.

Update 2: Thanks to blah3 for the link.

Looking out for #1

2003-12-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

The blogger-initiated experiment is going well.

As of right now, the #2 hit for a Google search of "miserable failure" is the official White House GWB bio.

Here's another for the spider to find: miserable failure.

GWB in Baghdad

2003-11-28T00:36:00.000-05:00

From the Reuters wire to Yahoo's news (link):

"Almost 300 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led assault to oust Saddam Hussein began on March 20, 186 of them since May 1, when Bush declared major combat over"

According to the official count (http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx), we're currently at 435, with close to two thirds of that of that since the "Mission Accomplished" farce/photo op, and 229 since the "what are you, high?" moment that was "bring 'em on".

So they only deflated the count by 31% - so what? We're only talking US deaths here.

As if anybody needed a reminder that the liberal media is so-called for a reason.

Pat Robertson is an Idiot, Part 752

2003-10-13T11:18:00.000-04:00

Why this guy continues to be taken seriously (to the point of people getting out their checkbooks and signing over money to him) escapes me. I thought he permanently put himself outside the realm of credibility with his post-9/11 comments (summary: Jerry Falwell said we deserved 9/11 because of gays, feminists, and liberals - Robertson enthusiastically agreed), but apparently there's a high tolerance on the religious right for lunacy.

This quote says it all: 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer,' and you say, 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?" Robertson said. (from CNN)

I guess I missed the portion of the Bible where Jesus advocates using nukes on governmental organizations which don't fall into lockstep with his worldview.

And this isn't even the first time he's talked about nuking the State Dept.

'Captain - she can't take much more of this!'

2003-10-04T02:08:00.000-04:00

I don't think the Valerie Plame outing goes to treason, which I think way too many people are throwing around. Treason has a very specific definition, right there in the Constitution, stating what constitutes the crime. Part of the definition is that the person who receives the info must be an enemy of the US. Now, I don't really care for Mr. Novak - he pretty much personifies everything I'm against (and also happens to embody the typical Republican constituent: fat, white, old, and rich) - but I don't think he qualifies as an enemy of state.

The bottom line is that somebody needs to be fired and likely prosecuted. That's a minimum of what I think will come out of this, and provided there's a genuine effort to cooperate that will probably be that. Serve up a sacrificial lamb and hope the wolves don't go back for more. But volunteering information, even when sought by a court order, and transparency is not what we've come to expect from this bunch.

But if there isn't, or even if there isn't the perception that there is, well, the coverup is always much worse than the crime. The Watergate break-in was a bungled burglary by a President who was on his way to a landslide victory. This is a much more serious crime.

An interesting aspect of this is purely political. It's interesting that a White House that is fairly good at changing the subject (credit where credit is due) has been stuck in damage control mode for almost a week now. Close to 3 months if you count the fact that this whole business came out of the Niger story that was breaking in early July.

It sure is fun to watch these people on the defensive for a change.

2003-05-05T21:40:00.000-04:00

I'm Chris Myles. By day, I'm a computer programmer, working in an established software company writing administrative applications for school districts in Java, Visual Basic, and a pretty lame language called Tango. By night, I'm an amateur political analyst who's working on a cutting-edge Point-Of-Sale product for a startup company that I hope will make me rich someday, but is for now an interesting distraction. By night, I also play video games.

Monday Morning Pundit is a (probably lame) takeoff on the Monday-morning quarterback phenomenon. What I plan to do is react to political news, as well as link to political news of interest.

I'm a liberal by philosophy, and plan to expand on that classification in the future, since it doesn't fit 100%. Suffice it to say, I'm none too happy with the state of our current government, and will make no pretenses about my leanings.

I got the idea to start my own blog after being published (indirectly and without definite attribution, but I was the guy - I've got the originals...) on Altercation and Eschaton, two of the highest-traffic lefty blogs out there. I figured, hey - if those guys can do it, and think enough of what I send them to post it numerous times, why can't I do it too?

Anyway - more to come.