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Saturday, January 14, 2006

The Pantload Speaks



First of all I want to thank everyone who aided in the sacking of Kate O'Beirne's book Women Who Make the World Worse over at Amazon. The overall book review is at 1.5 stars, and for reasons I have no clue about Amazon has now promoted the General's review -- which has close to 4,000 votes -- to the Spotlight review.

In addition to all the fabulous 1 star reviews everyone contributed (and if you want to feel good about the existence of an active, engaged left go have a read-through, it's really quite inspirational), it probably had something to do with John Amato's phone call to Amazon yesterday inquiring as to why they held their customers' views in such slight regard, for which the General has given him an honorary Seahawkhood.

And bless their little racist, chickenhawk hearts, KKKate's Klan took notice.

Jonah:
If you doubt the persistence of nostalgic Marxist thinking in feminist rhetoric, check out the reader reviews of Kate's book at Amazon.com. You'll learn that Kate is a self-hating woman and a fascist doing the work of her knuckle-dragging male paymasters. Anyone who's met Kate (or actually read her book) knows this is nonsense on stilts. A successful and independent-minded career woman and proud mom, she's equal parts Joan of Arc and mentoring den mother.
If Kate really wants to walk the talk, she ought to go home and start scrubbing toilets with her toothbrush like she counsels other women to do and STFU.

But she'd rather reap the rewards of a law degree and a career made possible by the feminists she's paid to deconstruct, a grand hypocrisy that nobody who allowed her to pimp her book this week on their shows seemed capable of pointing out. And God forbid anyone suggest SHE get one cent less than her male counterparts, she'd unearth that hatchet from the middle of her face and land it in someone's back.

But thanks anyway, Jonah. Nice to know we drew blood. Because, you see, it isn't about winning some sort of ultimate triumph, it's about making them fight for every inch. They know that, look at the full court press that they delivered to Knight-Ridder over a heavily researched, factually based article. Everyone knows if they want to run a piece like Knight-Ridder did that they're going to have an uphill battle, have to devote money, time and man hours to defending the assault. It just makes them that much less likely to do it in the future.

Tim Russert may be incapable of pointing out the obvious, but Kate O'Bierne's screed has now spent three days on Amazon with incredibly funny, loud and negative opposition. It's the equivalent of having the movie theater marquee stacked with negative reviews on the opening weekend of your film, the time period you count on to reap the biggest boxoffice, and future market impact will be predicated upon it.

Believe me. I've released a book before. This is an unmitigated disaster for her and her publishers. They most certainly knew they'd have more than a few negatives, but probably anticipated something like the response Bill O'Reilly gets, with his supporters eventually outshouting the opposition. Not for Kate.

Her page, which reviewers all over the country look to for their cues, is now a flaming shit heap.

Marc Cooper once famously said that he joined Chickenshit Bedwetter Media because Republicans know how to run a business. Well given the success of that wilting fiasco that pearl of wisdom really speaks for itself. But people might be surprised to know that not everyone on the left is a braless pot smoking tree hugger; some of us have rather sophisticated marketing backgrounds. And toward that end I'm reminded of this quote from Boss Tweed whose Tammeny Hall hijinks read like a 19th-century blueprint for BushCo.:
"Let's stop them damned pictures," the Boss supposedly said, "I don't care so much what the papers write about -- —my constituents can't read -- —but damn it, they can see pictures."
So all you photoshoppers out there who maybe don't have the time to devote to a daily blog but who want to spend a few moments throwing high-impact grenades, you know where I am.

Welcome to Late Nite on FDL. We'll be here regularly, having us some fun with the wingnuts and fightin' the good fight.

Update: Stealth Badger has a quiz to let you know if you are Kate Bait.

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And it's One, Two, Three, What Are We Fighting For...Don't Ask Me I Don't Give a Damn...



While both the traditional media and the warbloggers like Cap'n Ed are quick to dismiss the lives of 17 innocent people we accidentally bombed this morning ("This is war, and unfortunately war results in collateral deaths by mistaken targeting"), Phoenix Woman, from the comments, takes us back to yesteryear:
Note how a few years back, the GOP/Media Axis went into Froth-At-The-Mouth over "Bill Clinton bombing an innocent aspirin factory!"

They did so, even though:

a) the factory was indeed part-owned by Osama bin Laden (who Clinton was chasing down, even as the GOP/Media Axis was mocking him over it and hampering him with their "wag the dog!" crap)

b) the factory wasn't just making aspirin, but other, less charming substances, and

c) the attack took place at night to ensure civilians weren't harmed.

No similar mitigating circumstances exist for this bombing. None. Yet the GOP/Media Axis is still frantically trying to spin the murder of innocent men, women and children as a Good Thing.
One day I fully intend to finish Richard Clarke's book, I really do. Trouble is I read a couple pages and then hurl it against the wall.

(photo via Dependable Renegade)

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This Is How It's Done -- Pt. 4



Murray Waas has more on the GOP/Brent Bozell-financed Murtha smear:
The Post article in amplifying the allegations of the Cybercast News Service, also, in turn quotes an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The article included a 1996 quote from Harry Fox, who worked for former representative John Saylor (R-Pa.), telling a local newspaper that Murtha was "pretending to be a big war hero" Fox, who lost a 1974 election to Murtha, said the 38-year old Marine veteran had asked Saylor for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts because the office believed he lacked adequate evidence of his wounds.
What the Post leaves out of its story is that Saylor is deceased, and well, has been for some time now. (Saylor died way back in 1973, something that the Cybercast "News" Service, noted in their news story-- not to impugn their reporting practices.) In short, the Washington Post is relying on something said by a person with an axe to grind (Fox), who is quoting someone who is deceased (but who the newspaper forgot to tell you is deceased.) But it is even somewhat worse than that: the Post is quoting the ever-so-reliable and unbiased Cybercast News Service, which is quoting a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which includes an allegation by Fox... who is citing someone now deceased.
Don't forget the little tidbit about Fox that Cybercast buried in the bottom of the article:
"Cybercast News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate."
Fox made those comments about Murtha in a 1996 article. And now he can't be questioned about it either. And yet Howie Kurtz lets Thibault get away with saying "We won't run anything against anybody if we don't have the goods."

There is just oodles of journalistic integrity spilling all over this one, no?

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This Is How It's Done -- Pt. 3



The Washington Post prove themselves the willing bitches of BushCo. this morning as they play a big part in spreading the pernicious lies salted by Brent Bozell's Cybercast News Service hit piece yesterday.

Murray Waas asks a few questions they obediently didn't. I'm reprinting the whole thing because it needs to be heard, hope Murray won't mind:
The Washington Post gives major play this morning to an attack of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) on the website of the (until now) obscure Cybercast News Service. It accuses Murtha-- who won a Silver Starr and three Bronze Stars in Vietnam-- of purportedly saying that he had not deserved to win two Purple Hearts also awarded him for his service during the Vietnam war.

The Post story, by reporters Howard Kurtz and Shallagh Murray, quotes extensively David Thibault, the editor in chief of the (who ever heard of them before the Washington Post decided to give them such prominence?) Cybercast News Service, as saying that Murtha's medals from 1967 are relevant now "because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement."

But the article tells us very little about Thibault himself. Had the reporters done a simple Internet search, they would have discovered this biography of Thibault posted online which describes him as a "senior producer for a televised news magazine" broadcast and sponsored by the Republican National Committee. I dunno, but I for one, would have wanted to know that.

Thibault's background, it seems to me, and those engaging in the Swiftboating of Murtha would be relevant to any news story on this issue, I would think.

And so would some independent examination by the Post as to whether there is even any veracity to the charges.

The New York Times takes a day or two, or longer, before doing stories like this, as do other papers. They tend to examine the motives and backgrounds of those making such charges, and whether or not they have any basis in fact. That's how the Times handled the allegations that swirled around John Kerry's war service.

The Post's news ethic tends more towards that simply because an allegation is made it should be reported. To do otherwise, some editors of the newspaper argue, would mean putting aside one's objectivity. But simply giving prominent play to allegations that might or might not turn out to be true at some later day seems to me to be subjectivity by some other name.
It starts in some quote-unquote "news source" run by a GOP operative like "Talon News," which then leaks over into the sheeplike mainstream media where people like Howard Kurtz run with it.

But rather than point out that this is an obvious GOP shop, Howie facilitates a pre-emptive defense against any such assertion. He refers to them as a "conservative website" (much like WaPo Editor John WATB Harris referred to the website of GOP operative Patrick Ruffini) and asks no probing questions about a story which even a monkey could see is conceived, bought and paid for by the GOP.

And now we have to spend our time beating it into the ground, because nobody in the "traditional media" is certainly going to do it.

Update: Murtha will be on 60 Minutes tomorrow

Update II: Murray adds this: "In my original post, I mistakenly reported that Rep. Murtha won a Silver Star and two Bronze stars. Instead, he won a Bronze Star; a Distinguished Service Medal of the United States Marine Corps, and six other military awards for his 37 years of service with the Marine Corp."

This Is How It's Done -- Pt. 1
This Is How It's Done -- Pt. 2

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Flying the Very Friendly Skies on Graft Airlines


As it turns out, one of the chief bribers involved in the Duke Cunningham mess is none other than Brent Wilkes, erstwhile airlines executive (and I mean that in the snidest of ways). Seems Mr. Wilkes owned a 1/16th share of a private jet that he used to ferry Duke, Tommy Boy DeLay, Roy Blunt and other pols around the country.

Of course, every flight was *cough* legitimately paid for according to the parties involved and there was no *cough* quid pro quo expected. Hence the multi-count guilty plea from Mr. Cunningham, I'm sure.

Just who is Mr. Wilkes, you ask? Well...
Since launching ADCS in the late 1990s, Wilkes has built relationships with key legislators on Capitol Hill. He and his close family members and business associates have donated more than $600,000 to congressional campaigns, mostly targeted at members of the Senate and House appropriations and armed services committees, which oversee the Pentagon budget.

In addition, Wilkes has spent $440,000 on lobbying activities, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that monitors government ethics issues. He also has repeatedly provided the use of his corporate jet to Cunningham and DeLay.
But no quid pro quo expected whatsoever for contracts or otherwise. Just some favors among...erm...hunting buddies. Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket.

Nothing like making a corporate jet available so the pols can travel like fat cats...because you don't expect that to ever pay off in favors, now do you? You want to know how the palm greasing gets its start? Here it is.

And its one of the main reasons that Republican strategists started putting feelers out earlier in the week to push a non-Abramoff-connected House member into the Majority Leader race. Ed Rogers was going on and on about a potential dark horse getting into the race on January 10th's Hardball, and the name I heard batted about at that time was John Shadegg (R-AZ). Seems Shadegg entered the race on Friday, and Blunt is hitting back with a swift claim to the throne, according to The Hill today.

Secret ballot votes will be cast on Feb. 2 by the House Republican caucus. Guess we'll see whether Graft Air is still flying high.

(Hat tip to Josh at TPM.)

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Shock and...Oh, Crap


Seems we bombed Pakistan yesterday. The strike killed at least 17 villagers in the remote northwestern part of the country along the border with Afghanistan, including a number of children. Just not our target -- Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama Bin Laden's second in command.

Ayman was out for the evening. Well, actually, it seems he'd been out for a while -- or hadn't been there at all -- according to reports from Pakistan.

And there is a legal problem: Pakistan has not granted the United States authorization to cross the border, for bombing or any other combat purpose.
Pakistan has not granted American forces in Afghanistan the right to cross the border, even in pursuit of militants. American-led coalition forces clashing with militants in the mountainous province of Kunar say they have often been frustrated by their foes' use of Pakistan as a sanctuary....

This is the second report of an American attack on civilians in a Pakistani tribal region in recent days. Eight people, including women and children, were reported killed last Saturday when a helicopter fired at the house of a local cleric in North Waziristan close to the Afghan border.

Pakistan lodged a strong protest with coalition forces on Monday, but said it was still investigating whether the missiles had been fired from Pakistani airspace or from Afghan territory.
AP is reporting that the Pakistanis have filed a formal protest with the US Ambassador today, but that an investigation into what happened is still ongoing. Senior Pakistani officials tell another AP reporter that the CIA was acting on false information, and that thousands of local tribesmen have been protesting the US action.

More from Newsday, The Age, and Reuters, who is reporting that Zawahiri has been confirmed alive by Al Arabiya television.

Zawahiri is certainly a worthy target for capture, having participated in a substantial amount of the planning for al Qaeda operations with Bin Laden for years. But we've had enormous problems with intelligence in this region of Pakistan, where tribal rivalries and desire for obtaining monetary rewards have played a large part in several retribution tips that have not panned out.

This sort of substantial action, if it turns out to have been based on a false tip, won't make things any better -- and, in fact, may drive more of the tribal elders who have been sitting on the fence into the anti-American camp. Just what we don't need, with so many of our intelligence assets engaged in our Iraqi Adventure at the moment.

Guess we can call this one "Shock and...Oh, Crap."

(Photo by Thir Khan via NYTimes.)

UPDATE: Attaturk has more at Rising Hegemon from the Doughy Pantload. Shorter Jonah: "Oops, we missed. And when we kill innocent civilians, I'll just ignore it." Will morons never cease?

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Typhoid Ralphie Does the Two Face


Typhoid Ralph Reed's friend aren't returning his calls. They aren't hanging out with him in public. And they certainly aren't passing out endorsements after Jack Abramoff's plea on January 3. Seems folks in Georgia no longer want to take Ralphie to the dance.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Reed's fundraising is lagging behind his no-name-recognition opponent, and that the bulk of the monies raised by Reed over the last six months have been from out-of-staters. Reed has support from only 5 of Georgia's top pols, to his opponent State Sen. Casey Cagle's 63 -- out of a total pool of 133 Republican lawmakers in the state capital.

And to make matters worse for Reed, even his supporters are saying things like this: "We don't need another four years of ethics inquiries." and "What should have been a shoo-in is a tough uphill battle." Ouch.

What has made such a dent in the Christian Coalition Poster Boy's halo?
Documents released by the committee also shed light on Abramoff's relationship with Reed, currently a candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia. The committee included Reed in its investigation after learning that Abramoff and Scanlon paid him to lobby the Texas Legislature to close the Tigua tribe's casino in El Paso. The Tigua tribe had paid Scanlon roughly $4 million to help it win back a casino license.

"On the political front, did Ralph spend all the money he was given to fight this _ or does he have some left?" Scanlon asked Abramoff in an e-mail, the subject of which is blacked out on the documents released by the committee.

"That's a silly question! He 'spent' it all the moment it arrived in his account. He would NEVER admit he has money left over," Abramoff e-mailed Scanlon. "Would we?
Oh yeah. That's some ethical company to be keeping, now isn't it? Of course, Reed can blame it all on Abramoff and company and claim to be duped, right? It was never about the money for Ralphie Reed, right? Well...erm...Ralph's own words and actions tell a different story.
"I need to start humping in corporate accounts," Reed wrote to Abramoff in 1998. "I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."...

Reed also depended on Abramoff to help his political campaigns. In one e-mail exchange in 2001, he asked Abramoff to contribute to his successful bid to become state Republican chairman in Georgia. When Abramoff asked where to send the donation, Reed joked, "The actual committee is `The Reed Family Retirement and Educational Foundation.' The address is 200 Bay Drive, Grand Cayman, BCI, R59876."
Well, praise the Lord and pass the collection plate, that's a pretty damn good retirement scam. (Reed says he was joking, just FYI. Some joke. I'm sure the Tiguas think it's hilarious.) Kind of tough to claim you didn't know where the money was coming from when there's a big, long e-mail trail, isn't it? Hypocrisy much?

Typhoid Ralphie is having some trouble finding political dance partners these days. Could be because the latest polling has him trailing a Democratic candidate -- ANY Democratic candidate -- should he make it through the primaries. And right now the primaries are looking like a bigger and bigger "if." Or maybe it's just because no one in Georgia is in the mood to dance the two face.

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Friday, January 13, 2006

Late Nite Kate



Yes, it's that time of the night again, have a little fun with Kate.

Despite last night's valiant attempt to get the General (and other one-star reviews) on the front page, those Amazon fuckers have promoted the two lone "5 star" reviews that weren't total piss-takes to the front. They have dumped the General's review way in the back. So much for caring about their readers' opinions, they must be French or something.

Rena's got a great diary up at Kos (she kicked the whole thing off with her superb rant the other night) so please go recommend if you're feeling like stirring the shit a little on a Friday night. Or even if you're not. Just hit the "recommend" button.

Kate REALLY NEEDS a Kossak encounter.

In the mean time Amato and I were having a good yuck over some of the C&L comments the other night so I thought I might share some of the touching sentiments felt toward Kate by our fellow residents of Upper Blogistan:
. Isn't it interesting that we've never seen Kate O'Berine and Bernie Goldberg in the same room at the same time?

. Kudos to Kate. It's about time someone pointed out what's really wrong with this country -- a cancelled HBO series about 4 fictional single women. Forget hunger, forget nepotism, forget crony capitalism, forget corrupt politicians, forget corporate destruction of the environment and the disappearance of well-paid jobs and a social safety net. Fuck that petty shit. "Sex and the City" is destroying this country.

. Got teeth?

. Kate O'Bierne is not related to Kato Kaelin.

. Hey, did anyone read the OTHER review on the site? Seems this Craig Matthieson is a PAID reviewer!! So i reported that review as inappropriate. I highly recommend that everyone go back to that review and report it, as well. Most unseemly for a paid reviewer to present his (??) thoughts without noting he was paid.

. "I have long thought that if high-school boys had invited homely girls to the prom we might have been spared the feminist movement."

full quote: "....and then i would have had a date and not had to sit around with my creepy uncle phil all night long who always wanted to 'help' me take a bath. but no, they didn't do this, they only ask out the 'pretty' or 'easy' girls. no, i'm not bitter. why, do i seem it? "

. Beauty might be skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone!

. Kate O'Bierne has a MUCH larger penis than Bernard Goldberg.

. So, I guess that quote means Kate thinks she's NOT homely. Hard to imagine...I mean, that's really baffling.

. Kate's going to a prom? Isn't she a little old for that?

. She's kind of ugly to be writing that. Especially in that Gloria Steinam, Gloria Allred, Hillary Clinton and many of the "homely girls" look a hell of a lot better than her and Phyliss Schafley.

. Katie, you could split pine with that face.

. Won't it be funny when she is exposed as a dyke and sued by a bitter ex- girlfriend.
If you haven't written your one-star "Ode to Kate," please do. Despite the horribly misleading 5 star reviews that the publisher no doubt shit large bricks on Jeff Bezos' desk to get punted to the front so quickly, and despite the banishment of the General's brilliant political satire to the hinterlands (ungrateful wretches), I'm sure Kate is quite miserable about her current two star rating as any author with a brand new book would be.

May her misery -- and our amusement -- increase by one.

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Something's Gotta Give



This really tears it. First we are to believe that in the Post September 11 World Where Everything Changed Dubya needed warrantless wiretaps to carry out the War On Terra that wasn't really a war but whatever. Now according to Jayson Leopold, who also obtained recently declassified documents (PDF), Bush has been illegally spying on people ever since he was sworn into office. (Update: Emptywheel disputes this article, well worth reading.)

Since at the time he was for the most part ignoring Al Quaeda but was already quite comfortable with the thought that libruls were the enemy, I find no solace in this knowledge.

Glenn Greenwald has quite perceptive piece up today about the proposed congressional inquiries into the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program. It comes on the heels of what I believe to be Peter Daou's quite foundational piece about how the Democrats need to change their MO in politicking future issues. While Democrats on the Judiciary Committee probably did better during the Alito hearings than we had any right to expect based on past past performance, it was not good enough. And it most certainly wasn't part of any larger, coordinated full-court press that could have gained them some public traction to oppose the nomination.

Well intentioned though they might be, the members of the Judiciary Committee could bore the comatose. They are a standing committee rife with internal bickering whose members have other commitments that keep them from devoting the time they need to understanding the issues at hand, and they don't necessarily have the background or the expertise to be conducting this kind of investigation.

Digby concurs:
These hearings are going to be about a fundamental constitutional understanding of how our system of government works. The stakes are very high. We could be setting a precedent for a unitary executive that completely abrogates the system of checks and balances. The committee will interview legal experts who are going to make arguments that the president has a right under the constitution to ignore the laws and I don't want Dianne Feinstein being the one to challenge them.
Glenn argues, and I agree, that a Select Committee which includes experienced lawyers accustomed to conducting these types of investigations is desperately needed given the stakes -- much as Sam Dash or Arthur Liman performed during the Watergate and Iran/Contra hearings. I really don't need to hear Goober Graham's Hee-Haw jokes or watch Joe Biden loving the sound of his own voice as the mediocrity of the Judiciary Committee hijacks the gravity of the situation and sends people lurching for the remote. A committee of this kind was already created to investigate the government's role in Hurricane Katrina, so it is certainly within recent precedent.

As Digby says:
The other side is going to question opposing views with a simple bullshit rationale about saving the babies from the bogeyman. We cannot leave the much more complicated opposing argument to gasbag senators questioning much more agile legal minds than theirs. We need real, practicing lawyers who know the issues and know how to question a witness.
Just ask yourself -- given the fact that we're all probably just one terrorist attack away from populating Michelle Malkin's fantasy camps, would you rather have a Patrick Fitzgerald or a James Comey do some legitimate questioning, or watch Tom Coburn speaking in tongues for the cameras once again?

The people who show up here to comment are some of the most reasoned and articulate in the blogosphere, so I would really value your contribution to a "group think" on this one. I don't think I can underscore enough that this is really quite important.

(graphic by Monk at Inflatable Dartboard)

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Fitz Sighting



Patrick Fitzgerald held a press conference (viewable online) in Chicago today after charging Chicago City Clerk James Laski with receiving $500 a month in bribes to give city business to a company in the Hired Truck scandal.

Best moment:
QUESTION: Given the risk to Mr. Laski's career and his reputation, his sense of honesty here, it doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot of money.

FITZGERALD: I'm not going to disagree with you. If what we allege is true, it's wrong for people to take bribes -- it may also be stupid, but we're in the business of what's prosecuting what's wrong.
Fitzgerald was evidently spotted in Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday, making it less likely (though certainly not impossible -- that is after all what planes are for) that The Hill was right and he was with the grand jury on Wednesday of this week.

He looked awfully chipper and at ease. According to the NYT, Camp Rove does not yet know what Fitzgerald plans to do. Evidently Turd Blossom does not match the Special Counsel for high spirits these days.

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More Wingnut Welfare



Wolcott yesterday:
I understand Fumento's jealousy of Vanity Fair. Like so many rancorous rightwing underachievers, he resents a magazine--any magazine--that is successful on its own and carries actual advertising rather than being bankrolled by some billionaire madman or non-profit think tank itself dependent on corporate slush funds.
Editor and Publisher today:
Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) announced Friday that it severed its relationship with Michael Fumento -- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute -- for not disclosing he had taken payments in 1999 from agribusiness giant Monsanto. The payola was revealed by BusinessWeek Online, which also broke the story about columnist Doug Bandow. Copley News Service subsequently dropped Bandow.

In a statement released Friday, SHNS Editor and General Manager Peter Copeland said Fumento "did not tell SHNS editors, and therefore we did not tell our readers, that in 1999 Hudson received a $60,000 grant from Monsanto." Copeland added: "Our policy is that he should have disclosed that information. We apologize to our readers."
Roger Simon's blog traffic since forming wingnut-welfare subsidized Piss Puddle Media:
Tisk-tisk. Some people are always looking for a handout, and look what happens when they get it.

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This Is How It 's Done -- Pt. 2



Let the Swift Boating of Murtha Begin:
Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question
By Marc Morano and Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff
January 13, 2006

Read Article About Murtha's Links to Abscam

(CNSNews.com) - Having ascended to the national stage as one of the most vocal critics of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman John Murtha has long downplayed the controversy and the bitterness surrounding the two Purple Hearts he was awarded for military service in Vietnam.
Suggest the ominous in a big buildup -- people who don't read closely will think there's a lot of shit on this guy and it's been going on for a long time, it's not something that just got dragged out now.

Then find some old veteran to do your dirty work for you so the criticism won't be laid at the feet of chickenshit bedwetting BushCo. hatchet men:
World War II Navy veteran Harry M. Fox, previously indicated that Murtha in 1968 personally asked Fox's boss, then-U.S. Rep. John Saylor (R-Pa.), for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts, but was turned down because Saylor's office determined that Murtha lacked sufficient evidence of wounds. Murtha later challenged Saylor for his House seat in 1968 and lost. Fox said he personally viewed Murtha's military records in 1968 as Saylor's aide.
Make sure your story is unverifiable:
Cybercast News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate.
Bury this caveat in the bottom of the story. People will not read that far.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Update: Per Jeff B. in the comments: "Marc [Morano] was also a reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show from 1992 to 1996."

And from DKos: "Murtha turned down the [ABSCAM] bribe. The video of him being offered the bribe, refusing it, and getting up and walking out was shown on national TV. He even testified against two Congressmen in their trials." (thanks Slothrop)

Update II: Someone mentioned Steve Gilliard would have a good smackdown of this. He does.

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So Much for That Whole Chivalry and Compassion...Thing


Crooks and Liars has video up of compassionate conservative caring hubby Samuel Alito leaving yesterday's hearing. And leaving Mrs. Kodak Moment to fend for herself in the crowd.

Never mind that Republican Lindsey Graham made her cry. Never mind this has clearly been stressful on her and the rest of the family. Never mind that she's left back there to take care of the kids, the in-laws and the sister while Sammy gladhands his way through the crowd.

She got that sympathetic headline for him to start the day yesterday, so she can just fend for herself. Classy.

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Is Ralston Abramoff's Lobbying Connection in West Wing?


Via Roger Ailes, I find this story that I missed from Rolling Stone. It is worth pointing out because the Moonie Times (via Crooks and Liars) has been doing its darndest to find a Democrat -- any Democrat -- to tie to the Abramoff mess. (Hint to the WaTimes: NRO says stop it. It makes you look bad.)

According to Rolling Stone:
He chose Susan Ralston, who came highly recommended from a friend: Jack Abramoff. Ralston performed similar duties for the Don of K Street -- that is until Abramoff realized she'd be far more useful embedded in the West Wing. (Ralston had also previous worked for Abramoff and Rove's fellow College Republican crony Ralph Reed.)...

According to the Washington Post, Abramoff later bragged that he'd been able to lobby Rove directly on the issue. The article targets Ralston as the only likely conduit.
The WaPo article which Rolling Stone referencs can be found here. While it is older news that Ralston came to Rove's office via Abramoff, it is worth pointing out over and over while the Preznit has his staff rounding up all the pix of him and Abramoff that can be found: the WH is not insulated from the Abramoff mess. And it should not be given a pass by the media.

This is not a Congressional scandal -- it is a Republican scandal. And Republicans in the White House that were riding the Jackpot Jack fundraising gravy train should be on the hook for their actions as much as anyone on the Hill. That includes Karl Rove and all his connections to the KStreet Project.

Funny how the same names of the same College Republican buddies keep coming up, over and over again, regarding ethical lapses and problems in the Republican party, isn't it? Actually, it's not so funny.

UPDATE: Oh, and speaking of Jackie Boy Abramoff, have I said lately how much I heart Billmon? No? Well, go. Read. Enjoy.

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Thoughts on Day 3 of Alito Questioning


Having forced myself to slog through the entire Tivo-ed questioning of Judge Alito in one fell swoop, I've learned a few things.

Number one: A number of the Democratic Senators were using their bully pulpit in these hearings to educate the public, sometimes in not so subtle ways, about executive power, and the overreach of the Administration in a number of areas, particularly in the area of controlling government through the administrative agencies regardless of Congressional legal mandates and in areas of national security and military policy.

This says to me that Democrats were certain they could actually get air time to discuss those views and did not want to waste the opportunity, since they might not get it otherwise, with the talking head shows booked up with the likes of Lanny Davis and Joe Lieberman and all. Interesting commentary on the state of the media all by itself, isn't it? Or perhaps they were trying to educate the media -- trying to wake them up a bit? We'll see. But there was something going on above and beyond questioning the nominee, and I think it was a direct reaching beyond the media filter into the living rooms in America.

Number two: Senators of both sides of the aisle felt that they had to constantly give history and civics lessons as they set up their questions -- not for the nominee or themselves (although I do wonder about Cornyn and Coburn's ability to follow things without flow charts), but because anyone in the public who was watching could not be assumed to know the history of things like the illegal abortion versus how things are after Roe, or that Supreme Court justices sit on the bench for life after they are appointed.

We do a piss poor job of education in this country if that is the case -- and Democrats really suck at getting any message out if young-ish women in this nation have no clue what they are talking about when they say Roe. We have to do better, because ignorance only helps people to be lemmings.

Number three: When you Tivo the hearings, you can forward through the dull parts. And I'm going to do that for you, too, in the summary. What follows are my highlights of the issues which were brought up but not remotely resolved in Thursday's session -- or that need further discussion (in later articles here).

I thought Sen. Leahy brought out two important points to start the day's questioning: death penalty and general criminal law framework and philosophy, by talking about "The Rule of Four;" and further discussion on the Unitary Executive theory -- about which Alito gave a speech to the Federalist Society in 2000.

Unitary executive issues came up repeatedly throughout the questioning, which I felt was often being used as much to do public education on the issue and, perhaps, to pull the media into the importance of the question as well, as it was an attempt to determine where Alito falls in the philosophical curve.

I thought Sen. Kennedy's questions regarding executive power and the line between Congressional law enactment and Administrative enforcement was excellent -- I just wish that Kennedy could have spent more time on this issue and less on Vanguard, because I think it would have been more beneficial. (But maybe it' because I'm a wonk -- and I can see Alito hedging around the edges on this, and I got the feeling that, if pressed, he might have been less coached, less boilerplate, less black and white in his answers today, since that slipped a slight bit in his back and forth with Sen. Schumer.

Was very pleased that Biden raised the Yoo issue -- it needed public mention in these hearings -- and that Feinstein and Feingold then went the next step forward with it to specific questions on plenary authority for the President in a time of war and the consequences for ilegal activity on prosecution of terror suspects. (Feingold's questions on evidence gained through torture being inadmissible was clear and straight-forward -- would that all of the questions had been that way.)

I was also pleased that Feingold raised the issue of the people prepping Alito and how many of them were involved in shaping Administration policies that are being called into question currently. I want to do more digging on this for later, but this troubles me a great deal -- given names like Harriet Miers and Ted Olson and others on the list. It's sloppy and wrong, and stinks ethically on the Administration's part.

The most pointed exchange today was with Sen. Schumer, who did a good public PR thread on the logical next step from overstepping on wiretapping to next doing it with entering people's homes and elsewhere without warrants by order of the Preznit. That's something that even Joe Sixpack can understand, and get pissed about if he's sober enough to think about it.

But my overall impression is more of an esoteric one. After watching Alito for four days now, he strikes me as a very intellectual, analytical, black and white world kind of guy. He doesn't strike me as someone who weighs things out in shades of gray -- based on his answers to the myriad of questions, he's either an automaton who has been repeating rehearsed lines from the murder boards sessions, or he prefers to think about the law in terms of how things are in the Constitution, in his philosophy and in the statutes -- and the practical world be damned because it's outside fo his purview to think about that sort of thing.

But in my experience, it is the real world consequences of legal actions that can be so devastating. And this detatched view of the world as not being a part of how you think about the matter at hand really goes to the heart of the differences in conservative and liberal philosophies, I think. And is why I fear what the Court will become with Alito, if he is confirmed.

His approach is inherently conservative -- don't color outside the lines, what can I say to make the whole committee happy, what should I put on my job application to make them impressed and me likeable. Not exactly someone I can see standing up to Scalia in the deliberation room.

Alito never foreclosed overturning Roe -- he left that door wide open. That in and of itself is frightening to me. But when you add in the deference to government interests over those of individual citizens at a time when there are so many individual liberties being tested, I'm not willing to come close to giving Samuel Alito the benefit of the doubt.

And I hope that enough other Senators see it my way. I hope.

The other observation is a brief one, but it bears mentioning: Senators sure do like to talk, and to hear themselves talk. But in the context of these hearings, that is detrimental -- especially for Democrats, who are already at a disadvantage getting their message out given that networks like MSNBC booked only conservative guests for Day One of the hearings. And I'll not even mention Faux News except to say fair and balanced, my ass. We need a message. We need to be better about getting our message across.

All of that said, a full transcript is available via the WaPo, should you wish to know the entirety of the hearing. The NYTimes and the WaPo have articles discussing Alito's conservative leanings as well.

(The lovely picture is by an artists named Anthony Gonzalez, and is entitled "Gathering Thoughts." There are other equally lovely paintings through the link, but the use of layers of color in the depiction of the draped fabric is just exquisite in this piece.)

UPDATE: I meant to mention that the hearings begin at 9:00 am ET this morning, with more witnesses and testimony to be heard. And second, Scotusblog has been doing amazing work on these hearings -- including having a wonderful play-by-play from yesterday's testimony, as has the Supreme Court column in the WaPo.

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Thursday, January 12, 2006

Why Kate O'Beirne is a Dangerous Bitch



Some people have been wondering why I don't just ignore Kate O'Beirne, as if paying her no mind will just make her go away. The argument seems to be that to acknowledge her is to empower her.

Not going to happen.

It is a dangerous time to be an American. We live under virtually unchallenged one party rule, and that one party is on a rampage to make torture morally acceptable. Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman invite screaming racist Michelle Malkin to lunch, and today Peter Kirsanow is paraded before the Senate by the GOP as an "expert." Both of these people applaud rounding up American citizens and putting them into concentration camps.

ralphbon said something good in the comments yesterday:
Hate-list books like O'Beirne's, Bernard Goldberg's, and especially Ann Coulter's are the leading edge of something ugly and scary and are softening up the public discourse for increasingly eliminationist rhetoric.

Nazi antisemitism was a ludicrous distraction too, at the start, barely worth the energy to ridicule, much less refute.

The principal target needs to the media who give these scapegoaters the time of day -- from Time putting Coulter on its cover to the endless cable interviews with O'Beirne and Goldberg. The utter lack of shame and judgment by major media scares me far more than the pipsqueak wingers to whom they give a platform.

People of common sense and good will need to be able to do two things at once: smack down the scapegoaters and their media enablers while keeping our eye on the real ball of the Bush administration's fascist power grab.
These people are given air time far in excess of anything their extreme views justify. And ordinary people who don't think too hard tune in and watch them and are lulled into thinking that these positions are reasonable and that these people are reasonable, because they see them all the time and they are continually granted a legitimacy they do not deserve.

Now I'm as big a photoshop fan as the next person, but those caricatures on the front of O'Bierne's book look like nothing so much as the hideous caricatures of Jews in Nazi paraphernalia of the Third Reich. Women's rights are under attack in this country, a man is being put forward to sit on the supreme court who will very likely take us even further into the dark ages if given the chance, and it all seems "reasonable" because some asshole who actually knows better doesn't want to sully their fine manicure to scrap with the likes of Kate O'Bierne.

Being virtually manicure-free, this is not a problem for me.

Her book will sell, Regnery will ship it out to all the right-wing book groups and it will climb the charts and angry women-haters everywhere will hail it as the clarion voice of reason in a wilderness of liberalism. But Jesus General's review is at the top of her Amazon page tonight thanks to blogtopia, and maybe someone in Iowa watching Kate on Meet the Press will look her book up on Amazon and see on the biggest bookseller in the world that there is a culture which does not accept her as "okay."

Amazon reviews are prioritized based on how many "positive" ratings they get. There's still one "five star" rated review on the front page and it is my most solemn wish that it get knocked off tonight. It is my second most solemn wish that enough single star reviews are written to knock the overall rating down to an overall single star. Anyone feeling motivated can scroll through the pages of reviews and vote "yes" on all the one-star reviews here, and write their own review as well (one sentence reviews are weighted as heavily as long-winded tomes).

Someone from Regnery is probably calling up Amazon right now wailing like a banshee. Good. Make 'em pay, make 'em spend energy, make 'em fight. If Amazon takes a legitimate review off their site, political satire of an openly political book, I will scream blue bloody fucking murder. It'll give me something to do anyway.

It is not okay to have this foaming fascist omnipresent in the public consciousness, and I'm making it my personal crusade to kick up a stink about it. So I'll say it again for those who weren't offended enough the first time: The bitch is dead meat.

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Incoming...




Dear Michael Fumento:

Good God, man. Not Wolcott.

Concerned,
Christy

PS: Will they never learn. And to the the FDL readers, once you've stopped laughing convulsively, Wolcott also offers insight on Jane's earlier discussion of Daou by critiquing the talking head set. To be continued...

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Why, Some of Alito's Best Friends Are...



You knew they'd have to find some person of color to trot out sooner or later to give Alito a pass on the privileged bigot thing. How desperate are they to drag out Peter Kirsanow:
Bush's pet commissioner....can be considered somewhat of a White House mouthpiece on civil rights issues. So you can understand why the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee are calling for Kirsanow's resignation after remarks he made July 19 at a commission hearing in Detroit.

Speaking on homeland security and the administration's call for tougher measures, Kirsanow did not beat around the bush.

"If there's another terrorist attack, and if it's from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country," said Kirsanow.

Heard enough? There's more. "Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling," said Kirsanow.

Comforting words from a man appointed to uphold your civil rights in America.
Kirsanow was one of Dubya's recess appointments last week to be a member of the NLRB. When not writing for the NRO and making white bigots feel good about suppressing African-American votes, he's applauding Korematsu v. the United States, the 1944 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the government'’s use of internment camps.

Malkin's getting tingly all over right about now.

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What Do We Look Like Here?



Oh this is just absurd. Via MyDD:
Today, from Nancy Pelosi:

Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, the newly and unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Caucus who has lived his life with a commitment to a high ethical standard, will head the Clean House Team.

From NPR:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay isn't the only politician facing ethics charges. South Carolina's James Clyburn and Mississippi's Bennie Thompson, both Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, also had to answer tough questions last week. In 1997, both men traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. The trip -- and an earlier trip to the Marianas by two associates of DeLay -- appears to have been paid for by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is a violation of House ethics to accept gifts from a registered lobbyist. Abramoff is now the subject of a federal corruption probe.
We're not Michelle Malkin or the Powertools sitting here, please don't expect us to line up behind this shit just because you Say So. I'm not going to look for excuses to make this right. It undermines every argument we're trying to make about Abramoff and the architecture of the dirty GOP money machine.

This is just so stupid and wrong in so many ways I don't have words for it.

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How To Game Simple Media Dupes in One Easy Lesson



The jingosphere was irate yesterday with those of us who presumed to opine that Mrs. Sammy's tears looked somewhat staged.

Per Jeralyn, maybe the tut-tutters can explain the immediate post-caterwaul release of this:
The always-alert Creative Response Concepts, a conservative public relations firm, sent this bulletin: "Former Alito clerk Gary Rubman witnessed Mrs. Alito leaving her husband's confirmation in tears and is available for interviews, along with other former Alito clerks who know her personally and are very upset about this development."
And who would Creative Response Concepts be? According to Will Bunch, they're the same crack team that insta-pimped the Swift Boat Veterans and that TANG/Buckhead nonsense.

Quelle coincidence, as we traitorous French would say.

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This Is How It's Done



It is remarkably frustrating to blog the Alito hearings, feel the righteous indignation of people in the comments sections all over the blogosphere that the supreme court is in danger of making a major lurch to the extreme right with the potential appointment of a bigoted, sexist, entitled, slavering chickenhawk like Alito, and see it reflected nowhere in the traditional media.

Every time it feels like some momentum is being gained, CNN blows it all away with the sweep of a facile headline. Pick up a paper or turn on cable news and on cue they are parroting all the GOP's talking points -- Alito's a moderate, he'll keep an "open mind" on abortion, and oh the poor frumpy sobbing wife.

How does the GOP keep them all in such abject subservience? An article from the Knight-Ridder news service shows the extremely organized pressure they bring to bear on anyone who deviates from their party message:
On Dec. 1, Knight Ridder's Washington bureau sent a story analyzing the record of Judge Samuel Alito to our 32 daily newspapers and to the more than 300 papers that subscribe to the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Written by Stephen Henderson, Knight Ridder's Supreme Court correspondent, and Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News, the story began:

"During his 15 years on the federal bench, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has worked quietly but resolutely to weave a conservative legal agenda into the fabric of the nation's laws."

Assisted by Washington bureau researcher Tish Wells, Henderson and Mintz spent nearly a month reading all of Alito's 311 published opinions, which are available in a commercial database or in the archives of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, where Alito has sat for 15 years.

Henderson and Mintz cataloged the cases by category - employment discrimination, criminal justice, immigration and so on - and analyzed each one with help from attorneys who participated on both sides of the cases and experts in those fields of law. They interviewed legal scholars and other judges, many of them admirers of Alito.

They concluded that, "although Alito's opinions are rarely written with obvious ideology, he's seldom sided with a criminal defendant, a foreign national facing deportation, an employee alleging discrimination or consumers suing big business."

You might find this neither surprising nor controversial. Alito, after all, was nominated by a president who said that his ideal Supreme Court justices were Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the high court's most reliably conservative members.

You'd be wrong.

Within days, the Senate Republican Conference circulated a lengthy memo headlined, "Knight Ridder Misrepresents Judge Alito's 15-year record."
Their talking points in place, they sent out the foot soldiers:
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a leader in the Alito confirmation process, sent a letter to the editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, a Knight Ridder paper, denouncing the story as "neither objective nor accurate." The Inquirer published it on Dec. 7.
Trot out some "expert" and demand equal time:
The White House offered an opinion piece by Jeffrey N. Wasserstein, a former Alito law clerk who identified himself as a Democrat and said his former boss "is capable of setting aside any personal biases he may have when he judges." Knight Ridder/Tribune distributed it to all of our papers and its subscribers on Dec. 11.
Get the hacks into the act:
A conservative columnist, whose glowing tribute to Alito is now featured in television advertisements supporting the nominee, declared the Knight Ridder story "illiterate."
Then when anyone brings it up, cite all your previous bullshit as proof irrefutable that the story has no merit:
The controversy erupted again this week at Alito's confirmation hearings. After Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., referred to the Knight Ridder story, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced a critique of the story by the Republican staff of the Judiciary Committee into the record of the hearings. Kyl said the story, "has, to my understanding, been rather completely discredited." The first paragraph of the Republican critique, however, said the story was based on "dozens" of Alito's opinions, creating the false impression that Henderson and Mintz didn't examine the judge's entire body of published work.
Don't forget the ad hominum attacks on the author as a cautionary tale (a la Joe Wilson) to anyone else who might think to step out of line:
The Republican National Committee circulated a blistering personal attack on Henderson to some reporters, taking quotes out of context in an attempt to portray him as biased.
Bugger the truth:
The RNC said Henderson "admitted he was previously an editorial writer," as though that very public part of a distinguished reporter's career was a secret that he'd been trying to hide. The RNC statement then linked Henderson to editorials he didn't write.
And let's just remember the fact they were trying to dispute -- that Alito is a conservative:
This hysteria over a carefully researched article that documents the obvious - that Samuel Alito is a judicial conservative - is the latest example of a disturbing trend of attacking the messenger instead of debating difficult issues.

Fact-based reporting is the lifeblood of a democracy. It gives people shared information on which to make political choices. But as people in new democracies risk their lives to gather such information, in this country fact-based reporting is under more relentless assault than at any time in my more than 40 years in Washington.
Peter Daou has an important post up entitled "Bloggers in the Wilderness" about which he says:
This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists - positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war - face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called "liberal"” media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle.
Peter's absolutely right. And this is what we're up against.

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Bush and Sammy: Made For Each Other


MoDo:
You don't have to know the difference between horizontal and vertical stare decisis, or between emanations and penumbras, to see that the man who could take Sandra Day O'Connor's seat and yank back women's rights was, in a word, shifty.

Or in three words, shifty, sapless and sighing.

To offset his reputation on women's rights, he even played the henpecked husband. When Republican senators used the expression "When did you stop beating your wife?" about Democratic questions, Judge Alito riposted, "I wasn't asked whether she had stopped beating me."

His basic defense to Democrats boiled down to: "I was just saying what my boss wanted to hear at the time." Haven't we had enough yes-men mangling government for the last five years? Heck of a job, Sammy.

I understand why the president is drawn to the judge. Mr. Alito is dubbed "Scalito" - a conservative senator, John Cornyn, accidentally blurted out the nickname - because he's so much like Antonin Scalia. And W. loves Nino.

Judge Alito has supported imperial powers for the presidency, not strong checks and balances; he approved the strip search of a 10-year-old girl but is not probing too deeply into what the executive branch is doing. That's W.'s philosophy, too - a pre-emptive right to secretly do everything from war to torture to snooping.

Like the president, the judge loves baseball. Mr. Alito once vacationed at a fantasy baseball camp (O.K. fielder, hopeless hitter), wearing the red and white Phillies uniform. W. has spent five years in fantasyland on Iraq, on occasion donning military costumes.

His fingers in his ears, W. didn't want to hear that we had too few troops in Iraq - ignoring advice from Viceroy Paul Bremer and Gen. Eric Shinseki - or that the troops didn't have enough armor. But the president continues to fling blame outward.

In a speech yesterday before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he warned the Democrats that they should take care not to bring "comfort to our adversaries."

Judge Alito was evasive, disingenuous and deferential. He fits the Bush era like a baseball glove.
More like a used condom.

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Lieberman Says Filibuster is On the Table



Fearful that grassroots groups like MoveOn and DKos are organizing to oppose him in the upcoming election, Joe Lieberman has been feeling the heat. He's been meeting with the DFA hoping to keep them out of it, and Bill Scher now says that according to DFA reps he is claiming that "filibuster is definitely on the table."

If Lieberman is serious this could go a long way toward molifying liberal anger at him for his cuddly ways with BushCo. And if he's just yanking everybody's chain that is a really ill-advised move at this point. Hopefully we will hear more on this soon.

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Can You Say "Illegal?"


ABC News is reporting that former CIA General Counsel Jeffrey Smith has presented the Senate Intelligence Committee with a 14-page brief on why the Preznit's authorization for NSA domestic spying without a warrant is illegal.

As ABC points out, Smith is a Democrat. But if you think that means he's a partisan hack who is soft on national security matters, you can think again: he is a hawk who worked with Sam Nunn (D-GA) on the Armed Services Committee as their counsel before moving over to the CIA's legal department. (ABC conveniently fails to point out that Smith has been a defense and intelligence hawk throughout his career, and sticks to the Democrat label only. Convenient.) ABC reports that:
...Smith argues "it is not credible that the 2001 authorization to use force provides authority for the president to ignore the requirements of FISA."

He said that if the president's arguments for the wiretaps are sustained "it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system, which lie at the very heart of the Constitution."
Let's see, hawks on the left and right are appalled by the Preznit's power grab. Senators are pissed. Constitutional scholars are outraged. The only people backing up Bushie on this are the ones on his payroll -- well, and Yoo, who is on the hook for coming up with the idiotic idea in the first place, but let's just call that CYA support, shall we?

So much for the "everybody does it" defense. Can you say "illegal?" Thought you could.

(Hat tip to reader Stephen Parrish for the link.)

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Door Wide Open


The WaPo appears to be getting part of the message today, and announces that Alito left the door open for reversing Roe. Well, duh. But it's nice of them to notice.

Especially since the NYTimes is blaming Democrats for Mrs. Alito's sobfest -- never mind that Republican Lindsey Graham was the one making her cry.

It was an old trial attorney trick that Graham pulled out of his briefcase yesterday, and the NYTimes and the teevee media are lapping it up. Suckers.

The trick goes like this: when you have bad information about a witness who will be testifying for your side at trial, you get out in front with the information by bringing it out yourself rather than let the other side pull it out. That way, when the other side gets around to it, the bad stuff seems like old news.

You know -- the fact that CAP was a bigoted, white boys only club, kind of organization. The kind of group that thought it was appropriate to call a female student's mother to inform her that her Catholic daughter was using contraception...talk about respecting privacy rights and individual freedoms. Hoo boy!

And that Alito was a proud, job-application-bragging member -- despite his ROTC protestations to the contrary, the facts on that score just don't add up. Republicans know that the facts, if they get traction, pose a problem -- hence, the bigot maneuver.

The Today Show fell for it hook, line and Kleenex this morning with their "Have Democrats Gone Too Far?" reporting. Incompetent saps. Here's a clue: Lindsey Graham is a RE.PUB.LI.CAN. (Wolcott calls baloney. Or maybe just canned ham.)

The hearings start this morning at 9:30 am ET -- and should include Senators questioning Alito, along with the first round of witnesses. Witnesses like the very special Peter Kirsanow, coming soon to a Muslim internment camp near you -- a man who told an Arab-American group in July, 2002, that if another terrorist attack occurred involving Islamic militants, the Muslim-Americans "could forget about civil rights." Nice friends, Sammy.

But do Republicans on the Committee support a full and fair hearing of all sides of things? Guess not, if their treatment of Cathy Fleming is any example. Sen. Brownback initially had her on his witness list -- until he found out that she had critical things to say about Alito. She was uninvited at that point.

Guess the Republicans are hoping for that homey, hand-picked Presidential Kool-Aid style for the hearings -- no dissent is good dissent, I always say. (Oh wait, no I don't. That's Bushie's department.)

(Photo by John David Geery. Some lovely photos, some available for purchase -- take a peek.)

NOTE FROM RH: My toddler has hit the Alito hearings wall this morning. Am Tivo-ing the hearings to do highlights, but am unable to do play-by-play at the moment. Leah at Correntewire is doing play-by-play this morning, and I'll be following along with her narrative and doing some comments here until I can switch over to C-Span from my current viewing of Veggie Tales. Sorry, but toddler happiness has to trump unitary executive theory for the moment. But I'll likely get back to C-Span soon, so it may only be a short blip.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Win a Date With Kate



This is just horrible. Those creeps at Amazon have censored the General and are refusing to run his review of Fair Kate's book. The nerve:
I found many truths in Mrs. O'Beirne's book, truths so self-evident that I have to wonder why no one has stated them until now. For instance, how could anyone argue with her assertion that feminists exploit female war casualties to "advance the feminist agenda of androgyny and abortion." Even I have to admit that every time I hear that another woman has been sacrificed in our glorious Iraq adventure, I'm tempted to tell my wife, Ofjoshua, to throw on a pair of jeans, head for the nearest women's health clinic, and help them slaughter a whole passel of blastocyst-Americans.

But I think it's her frequent attacks against the television show, "Sex in the City," that I value most about this book. By promoting the myth that women should enjoy sex, that show has done more to destroy the institution of marriage than even homosexual unions. I think most men will agree with me when I say that there isn't a woman alive who isn't thoroughly repulsed by sex. Telling them that it should be a pleasant experience rather than a vomit-inducing one only serves to cause them to resent their husbands when the impossible isn't delivered. Hopefully, this book will help destroy that myth.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I can't give it more than a single star because it has a fatal flaw. It promotes the most destructive myth of all, the existence of lesbianism. Mrs. O'Beirne discusses it throughout the book as if it is something that is real. She doesn't seem to be able to understand that women can't have sex with each other. They don't have little soldiers.
Kate's Amazon page has been heavily freeped. Anyone so inclined can freep back here.

TBogg caught a few more gems, however, before those Amazon fuckers pulled the plug.

Betsy's Muse says Kate has the IQ of a tapeworm and reminds her she better thank the feminists every time she wears pants.

Our good friend Heretik Joe has superb visual aids, and points us to Amanda who gives us a Kate, Jonah and Derb three-for-one and the memorable line "I’ve yet to meet a feminist who said something like, say John Derbyshire’s proclamation that because he finds bona fide boobies repulsive, all men want to fuck high school girls." Pretty much sums up Sex and the Corner right there.

And as Attaturk says of the meagerly literate women of Pantload Junction: "If their ability to make an income isn't a demonstration of the effectiveness of the feminist movement I don't know what is."

Stealthbadger coins a new phrase for Kate's oeuvre -- "literary turd"

Mike at Mike's Well Hidden Genius says Kate displays all the DMS-IV symptoms of Asperger syndrome. Never heard of it but it fits her like a glove.

And Lons at crushed by inertia wonders what's up with conservatives always making enemies lists.

That is a very good question.

(graphic courtesy of the talented Berkeley -- I think it's destined to become a bloggy classic)

Update: The General's review is now up! The French have heard our plea. It's every patriot's duty to go vote. And vote up some of the others while you're there.

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Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love



Jonah Goldberg tells the one about when his mom got tired of watching him eat paste in the basement and bought his way into college:
I went to an all-women's college. Mine was the first "integrated" class at Goucher College, a fine, historically single-sex liberal arts college in Baltimore. As you might imagine, many of the young women there, some egged on by very ideological feminist professors, had opposed the decision to admit men. The fact that my freshman year was also the year Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court and Glenn Close boiled a bunny in "Fatal Attraction" might give you a sense of the larger cultural climate as well.

While my undergraduate experience was not exactly the late-night Cinemax adventure some imagine when they hear that there was a roughly 30-to-1 female-to-male student ratio, I did find the experience rewarding on several fronts. One of them was that I learned quite a bit about feminism and feminists (I was certainly exposed to more feminist theory than I was to, say, the U.S. Constitution or the American founding).
I went to a women's college too and I know the type -- they show up thinking that under the law of averages even they might get lucky and become angry for the rest of their lives when they discover nobody's ever that hard up. Somehow it becomes Betty Friedan's fault that they never got a bj when the meter wasn't running and the result is pretty much the entire NRO masthead (a group to which, it seems, Brian Williams now aspires).

TBogg envisions Jonah's days as a puffy young coed and yes, sweaty man boobs are mentioned.

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Subtle



Mrs. Strip Search Sammy sure had herself a Kodak moment today, didn't she? Goober Graham left off his corn-pone homilies and played the hick card just long enough to set her up by using the B word --– the word they're all terrified of, the word they wanted to use before the Democrats did -- BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT -- that sent the low-rent Sarah Bernhardt shrieking for the cheap seats.

I've worked in the biz long enough to know a poorly executed little melodrama when I see it and that was the worst, the most shameless, most obvious. It's the role you give a really bad actress, one that can't even be counted upon to cry with conviction. The mad dash will obscure the crocodile tears and ensure that all the cameras follow, and any attempt at intelligent discussion of quite serious and weighty matters will undoubtedly get trumped by a moment of quick burlesque ripe for the evening news. A slavish press will need no coaching to play along.

Pure setup 101.

Somebody sat down last night and decided ol' Strip Search was coming off cold and vaguely sweaty and creepy. But how to soften him up, make him sympathetic, get the public on his side? Anyone with an IQ over 52 was doing an eye roll over that one, so it ought to have had some sort of GOP trademark stamp atop it.

Democrats are now effectively warned away from inching near the "B" word lest they look like cruel Snidely Whiplashes taunting Dainty Sensitive Nell.

These boldfaced crooks are absolutely desperate to stack the court and keep all their bacon out of prison.

Update: TBogg says boo-fucking-hoo.

Update 2: Wolcott and Watertiger are equally moved.

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Another WaPo Hand Job



Washington Post staff writer Marcia Davis had the long knives out today for the Democrats questioning Strip Search Sammy, quick to mock them as girly men in an article entitled "For Democrats, A Most Tender Roast of Alito":
It was beginning to look as if the Democrats had shown up to a knife fight without a knife yesterday.

It was beginning to look as if they'd just been woofing when it came to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. That they'd written a check full of bluster that a lackluster series of questions couldn't cash.

There were some deft jabs, for sure, and Democrats did visit the territories they had promised -- from abortion rights to executive power to issues of discrimination and the appellate judge's ethics. But the Dems didn't rampage, didn't storm the barricades as all their tough talk had promised.

In fact, most of the day was so quiet that by mid-afternoon you had Republicans such as Texas's John Cornyn going before reporters and essentially declaring victory.

That's hard to take when Americans have been promised a smackdown. This is a reality TV nation, a WWF kinda country, where we like to see a fight even when we know it isn't real, even when we know the stakes might just be a bag of Cheetos.
Now the Post and other papers are perfectly entitled to print one-sided opinion pieces as just that -- opinion. You'll remember all the harumphing that was done recently by John WATB Harris and others about how Dan Froomkin's column was not "news" and as such had to be relegated to the "opinion" page so as not to taint the genetic purity of the news division?
He’s entitled to his opinion, and he’s entitled to be proud of what is obviously a devoted audience. But you know how I feel—his column, under its current title and display, does dilute the Washington Post’s reputation, and more serious care should be given to its editing and presentation.
I've never seen anything as nasty and one-sided coming out of Froomkin's pen as this Marcia Davis hatchet piece. But it isn't on the opinion page -- it appears on Page C1 in the Nation section, leading off the paper's Special Report on the Supreme Court.

Thanks, Washington Post. Your policies remain perfectly clear.

(thanks to reader Teddy)

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Stonewalling for BushCo. Bigots



Despite the fact that Strip Search Sammy is suffering from a bout of the dreaded DC Can't Remember Shit Disease, his membership in the uber-wingy CAP is proof that he is either a) a BIGOT or b) has no principles he wouldn't readily sell out in an attempt to curry favor with power. Neither belong on the Supreme Court.

And the Republicans know this CAP stuff is toxic. They've been stonewalling any legitimate inquiry into creepy Sam's history with the group, and Specter is either so ignorant of what's going on within his own committee that he's in no position to be chairing it or he's just a lying shill for the Bush administration when he says those documents were never requested.

Think Progress has a video of the dust-up with Ted Kennedy.

This is a history of the back-and-forth with the Kennedy office, according to Kennedy staff:
November 30, 2005: Senator Kennedy requests Congressional Research Service to ask Rusher's permission to examine CAP documents at Library of Congress.

Week of December 5, 2005: Rusher turns down CRS request.

December 22, 2005: Senators Kennedy sends letter to Senator Specter asking for Committee request of Rusher documents. Delivered by hand to Judiciary Committee.

Date unknown prior to 1/5/06: Kennedy staff and Specter staff discuss December 22 request.

January 5, 2006, 7:29 pm: Kennedy staff request status report from Specter staff on request regarding Rusher documents.

January 5, 2006 7:50 pm: Specter staff replies that they are not inclined to grant request because they are personal documents.

January 6, 2006, 12:01 am: Kennedy staff asks Specter staff to reconsider on basis that there are not personal documents but business records of a very public organization.

January 11, 2006: Senator Specter says he's unaware of the request.
If Specter's got a different version of events, let's hear it.

My inbox has been stuffed with emails from Princeton graduates who are outraged that CAP would be characterized as anything but a bunch of raving, elitist racists, and their publications most certainly back that up.

According to Bill Scher, Specter has now agreed that they will get the records. But it's indicative of the lengths they'll go to in order to keep the spotlight off Sammy's Dirty Little Secret.

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Abramoff Mess a Republican Scandal



Rich Lowry, National Review, coming out of his Kool-Aid haze for a moment:
But this is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection.

Abramoff is a Republican who worked closely with two of the country's most prominent conservative activists, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Top aides to the most important Republican in Congress, Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) were party to his sleazy schemes. The only people referred to directly in Abramoff's recent plea agreement are a Republican congressmen and two former Republican congressional aides. The GOP members can make a case that the scandal reflects more the way Washington works than the unique perfidy of their party, but even this is self-defeating, since Republicans run Washington.
Well, hallelujah and pass the ketchup. I'm not saying this sort of sanity will hold...but let's celebrate the moment while we can.

And just so the Administration doesn't think it can sneak one by in an Alito-hearing media dump: psssst...the WH was buddy buddy with Abramoff, too.

(Graphics love to AmericanIdle.net.)

And this programming note: I've confirmed with Air America's The Majority Report that my segment will start around 7:50 pm ET. You can listen to the segment here online if you don't have an Air American station in your area.

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