At least he makes sure I can still laugh despite everything going on these days. Like by pointing out that Porter Goss, our new CIA head, didn't appear to have been briefed on any plans to try to go after Osama bin Laden.
On the other hand, (and this is tangentially related because Stewart did such a great job of interviewing Ari Fleischer the other night on the Daily Show), there was a great moment where the former press secretary pulled a good one on Steve Inskeep, which just proves that Steve-O is no Bob Edwards.
Steve mentioned that he'd once been told that there was a difference between answering a question from a reporter and responding to a question from a reporter. Ari's response? "Well, I guess I'm not sure what the distinction is."
A beautiful illustration of exactly that point which Steve seemed not to have noticed.
The good--though usually boring--folks at Consumers Union have produced an absolutely hilarious animated short satirizing drug companies, their advertising campaigns, and those crazy lists of side effects they hope we won't notice. Watch it and then sign the petition in support of the FACT Act, which would require big pharma to publish their clinical trial data in their entirety.
Frank Rich has a great column today about how Gannongate has collapsed any boundary between "real" news and "fake" news as practiced by John Stewart--with a sensible thesis that fake news is the perfect medium for the times:
The "Jeff Gannon" story got less attention than another media frenzy - that set off by the veteran news executive Eason Jordan, who resigned from CNN after speaking recklessly at a panel discussion at Davos, where he apparently implied, at least in passing, that American troops deliberately targeted reporters. Is the banishment of a real newsman for behaving foolishly at a bloviation conference in Switzerland a more pressing story than that of a fake newsman gaining years of access to the White House (and network TV cameras) under mysterious circumstances? With real news this timid, the appointment of Jon Stewart to take over Dan Rather's chair at CBS News could be just the jolt television journalism needs. As Mr. Olbermann demonstrated when he borrowed a sharp "Daily Show" tool to puncture the "Jeff Gannon" case, the only road back to reality may be to fight fake with fake.
In more revealing news, Maureen Dowd tells us today about her inability to get a White House press pass. (A propos of my post yesterday, perhaps turning tricks might actually increase her chances!) She starts off in rare form, asking "Who knew that a hotmilitarystud wanting to meetlocalmen could so easily get to be face2face with the commander in chief?" But her experience confirms the obvious--that the White House was actively preferential in getting Gannon/Guckert in. She uses this story to its best end--tying together all that we know about the White House's Orwellian and un-democratic manipulation of the media. That's the tragedy. What makes it fun is the opportunity to laugh at the farce of the Gaybasher-in-Chief consorting with a gay hustler.
I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.
In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend? He used a driver's license that said James Guckert to get into the White House, then, once inside, switched to his alter ego, asking questions as Jeff Gannon.
Mr. McClellan shrugged this off to Editor & Publisher magazine, oddly noting, "People use aliases all the time in life, from journalists to actors."
I know the F.B.I. computers don't work, but this is ridiculous. After getting gobsmacked by the louche sagas of Mr. Guckert and Bernard Kerik, the White House vetters should consider adding someone with some blogging experience.
Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?
Or maybe Gannon/Guckert's willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing. One of his stories mocked John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" with the headline "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."
With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes. If you're their critic, nothing goes. They're waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they'll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs and replacing them with ringers.
At last month's press conference, Jeff Gannon asked Mr. Bush how he could work with Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." But Bush officials have divorced themselves from reality.
They flipped TV's in the West Wing and Air Force One to Fox News. They paid conservative columnists handsomely to promote administration programs. Federal agencies distributed packaged "news" video releases with faux anchors so local news outlets would run them. As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with "news" articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home, but you have to look hard for the disclaimer: "Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense." The agencies spent a whopping $88 million spinning reality in 2004, splurging on P.R. contracts.
Even the Nixon White House didn't do anything this creepy. It's worse than hating the press. It's an attempt to reinvent it.
Carol emailed me a few days ago, with a link and a plea for understanding. "You're from Oklahoma," she wrote. "Can you explain this?"
No, Carol, I don't think anyone we know can explain this:
An Oklahoma state senator hopes to revive cockfighting in the state by putting tiny boxing gloves on the roosters instead of razors.advertisement
Click Here!
The Oklahoma Legislature outlawed the blood sport in 2002 because of its cruelty to the roosters, which are slashed and pecked to death while human spectators bet on the outcome.But Sen. Frank Shurden, D-Henryetta, a long-time defender of cockfighting, said the ban had wiped out a $100 million business.
To revive it, he has proposed that roosters wear little boxing gloves attached to their spurs, as well as lightweight, chicken-size vests configured with electronic sensors to record hits and help keep score.
"It's like the fencing that you see on the Olympics, you know, where they have little balls on the ends of the swords and the fencers wear vests," Shurden said. "That's the same application that would be applied to the roosters."
So no, no explanation possible. I will say that between Shurden's wild desire to cockfight and Bush's dreams about a mandate, I am sensing some seriously repressed homo lovin'. As Freud said, fantasies about roosters wearing gloves can only mean one thing...
Freuqent readers will know well my distaste for Peggy Noonan, the washed-up Reagan speechwriter the other Reagan speechwriters love to hate. So it is with shock and no small measure of glee that I read Noonan's rather shrill attack on W's inaugural address. Under the headline (are you ready for this?) "Way too much God," Noonan makes the following sensible observations:
A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty.No one will remember what the president said about domestic policy, which was the subject of the last third of the text. This may prove to have been a miscalculation.
It was a foreign-policy speech. To the extent our foreign policy is marked by a division that has been (crudely but serviceably) defined as a division between moralists and realists--the moralists taken with a romantic longing to carry democracy and justice to foreign fields, the realists motivated by what might be called cynicism and an acknowledgment of the limits of governmental power--President Bush sided strongly with the moralists, which was not a surprise. But he did it in a way that left this Bush supporter yearning for something she does not normally yearn for, and that is: nuance.
Mon dieu! One assumes she wants the President to serve up said nuance with a drippy tranche of Camembert! Does she think he's French or something? She goes on to bash the music as "modern megachurch hymns, music that sounds like what they'd use for the quiet middle section of a Pixar animated film . . . lame." Uh-oh, this sounds like Peggy (who, as a rags-to-riches graduate of Farleigh Dickinson University, isn't exactly a standard issue blueblood) sounding the strains of WASPy disapproval of Bush's tacky Texas born-againness. If the message-toting mandarins of the right are going to start going after Bush on questions of taste, it's going to be an enjoyable four years after all!
She ends, amazingly, with this:
And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.
She totally sounds like a member of the reality-based community... which is a bummer, because I'm really not sure we want her in our club. On the other hand, if she keeps throwing phrases like "mission inebration" around the troglodytic halls of the WSJ's editorial page we might have to make room for her.
On the other hand, Tbogg might be right in his "Shorter Peggy Noonan" post this morning: "And I remember thinking: This speech would have been better if I had written it."
This is a great post: I'm Not Sure How Many More Corners We Can Stand To Turn.
But more to the point, Al Franken's blog quotes the well-respected, uber-insider Nelson Report with the day's worst news-- that W has truly become the Boy in the Bubble, to an even greater degree than previously realized:
The Nelson Report is a daily political tip sheet and analysis written for the past 20 years for the (US and Asian) corporate and government clients of Chris Nelson, a former Capitol Hill staffer and UPI reporter. (He was actually the first to break the looted explosives story before the election; Josh Marshall then posted it to his blog.) This Monday, he wrote:"There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear “bad news.”
Rather, Bush makes clear that all he wants are progress reports, where they exist, and those facts which seem to support his declared mission in Iraq...building democracy. “That's all he wants to hear about,” we have been told. So “in” are the latest totals on school openings, and “out” are reports from senior US military commanders (and those intelligence experts still on the job) that they see an insurgency becoming increasingly effective, and their projection that “it will just get worse.”
Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message."
Remember the good old days when zaftig interns gave the President blow jobs? Now apparently only Pollyanna is allowed that close.
Wonderful letter from David Brock of Media Matters to Bill O'Reilly, using his own words against him to call him a coward for not letting Brock come on his show. A classic.
How else to explain this freakish item posted byAtrios
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A senior U.S. official said on Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is a "rational" leader who would be able to transform his impoverished Stalinist state once he resolves the nuclear standoff with the international community."Many accusations that he (Kim Jong-il) is some sort of crazy person are not correct," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times at his office in the State Department. He said Kim's leadership is one that is unique and rational.
On the other hand, maybe it's not news that W must respect Kim, much as he does Putin. "I took the measure of his craziness..." or some such tripe.
Yahoo! News - U.S. Says Terrorists Could Use Lasers
In related news, can someone throw me a fricking bone here? Oh, no-- a thrown bone might fricking collide with a jetliner. Or cause a release of red-hot magma.
If the terrorists really want to get ahead of the Bush Administration and totally cut out the middle man, maybe they should attack us with bad movie clichés and deprive the Badministration all of its best Orange Alert punchlines.
What you see is what you get: a world leader who was too busy making shooting gestures to himself in the bathroom mirror to notice his fly was open. Nice shot George.
See the photo to back up all the most unsavory rumors on them Internets today. If this is original equipment, it clearly explains the heart trouble. Though one would expect Lynne to look a little happier once in a while.
There's something really satisifying in reading someone else spout off what you've been thinking for the last several days. Lazy, but satisfying.
Greg Palast, the reporter who uncovered many of the details in the 2000 Florida election fiasco, now claims that Kerry won Ohio. The culprit, he claims, is not provisional ballots, but undervotes and hanging chads: just like last time. Unlike last time, though, we didn't even get to a recount after the Republican Secretary of State for Ohio loudly claimed it was a "statistical impossibility" for Kerry to win.
This, at least, made me smile:
Adam Felber's Fanatical Apathy blog posts his own concession speech, worth reading in toto. The best bits:
There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.
Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.
(Via ThePoorMan.net)
"I'll show you! You won't let me in the debates? I'll have my own!" There's a clip from Ralph's action figure debate here.
Hey Ralph, last time around I actually defended your voters, I really did. We badly need governmental reform to support third party politics, I still believe that. And when I'm checking out my post-Kerry election optioins for how to continue the momentum for change, it's one of the issues I'll explore. But not until after. You can't win, Ralph, why are you being such a spoiler? Could we put the fire out before we talk about how we're going to remodel?
Related aside: I was in the library last week where I saw a woman wearing a Nader button. It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to walk over to her and punch her. I totally could have taken her, she was pretty skinny.
Steve Clemons has more on the story I wrote about a few days ago. Apparently a lot of people (an anonymous commenter here included) didn't want to believe some of what the soldier told him. Steve has confirmed some of the details and is continuing to investigate others. But I point out again that Steve is a professional journalist and not likely to be taken in by someone who is either a pathological liar or a deliberate agent of disinformation. It's worth a read.
But not fast enough. Apparently Bill O'Reilly has decided to settle with the woman who dared reveal what a perv he is. I doubt he was fast enough to save his marriage though. Let me see... what would I do if it was published on the web that my husband was bragging to a stranger about going to Italy for sex romps while I was pregnant...and that same stranger said that he was sexually harrassing her...I think I might consider kicking his ass to the curb.
Nice that he dared to write a children's book. God! I hate these people.
Here's the Washington Post link to the story.
From the wise and moderate Steve Clemons, confirmation of much of what I've heard about the military and Bush:
I JUST SAT NEXT TO A VERY TOUGH SOLDIER FROM THE 82ND AIRBORNE on a flight back from Europe. I have been thinking for two days about how to share some of the things he told me without compromising him.This guy I met is not one prone to talk; he was very serious, very mellow -- and comes from a family of enlisted military men. His dad was in Vietnam.
He has had one rotation in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. He is now in Germany but will soon be transferred back to Iraq. He was at Tora Bora and has seen a lot of Iraqi, Afghan, and American dead.
According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the election and don't care who defeats him; anger and resentment are high. He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm's way. From lietenants all the way up, there is general understanding that the officers are hiding in holes, or holding back in well-defended buildings and quite cavalier about sending troops out for assignments and errands that are frequently stupid, poorly planned, and dangerous.
From there, it gets more graphic, more depressing, and even weirder:
He shared quite a bit more, including that his military commanders are planning for at minimum an eight year deployment in Iraq, maybe longer. He also shared an interesting anecdote that about a year ago, certain commanders in the 82nd Airborne had been told to prepare for a quick incursion into Cuba. I was stunned.He said, "Yep, we couldn't believe that on top of everything else, Bush thought he could go take out Castro." The Navy Seals were going to go in and do the dirty work, he said, and the "82nd was going to go in for clean-up." He said that he never heard more about it but that the orders clearly didn't go forward -- but they were prepared for that possibility and told that "Bush just wanted to take out Castro."
A great post from Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money:
John Kerry says George W. Bush made a mistake by failing to secure 380 tons of high explosives in Iraq.George W. Bush does not make mistakes. The US Army was responsible for guarding the explosives. The US Army failed. Therefore, John Kerry is attacking the US Army.
John Kerry hates America.
Is that about right?
Bush gives the camera the finger. Apparently, he cares less what Jesus would do and more about "What Would Dick Cheney Do?".
"It's amazing what you can capture when your camera is turned on. This video shows what George Bush thinks of democracy. He was caught on video while governor of Texas.
On November 2nd please join the army of volunteers who will keep an eye on our democracy. Volunteer here to submit video of disturbances outside polling locations. Enter your contact info and we will send you an email with more information."
Brilliant article in Slate today: "The Case Against John Ashcroft". Despite granting himself sweeping powers of detention and the virtual dismantling of due process, there have been zero -- ZERO! -- terrorist-related convictions since 9/11. A failure by any standards, as the article does well to explain.
The always astounding get your war on comic is blindlingly sharp this week. Check out barbs like this:
"You know what I don't like about Kerry? He doesn't have a real strategy for winning the War on Terrorism.""I know! I heard he'd only allow, like, one-hundred-and-ninety tons of explosive to fall into the hands of the terrorists! What kind of half-assed plan is that?"
"Speaking of half-assed, did you hear the one about the soldier whose Humvee rolled over and IED made of looted explosives from Saddam Hussein's ammunition stockpiles?"
Ouch. The rest of it is that good.
For an amazing insight into the internals of Bush/Cheney reelection campaign check out this Dead Letter Office at georgewbush.org. Note -- that's the parody site at .ORG, not the official campaign site at .COM. But the dead letter office is no parody -- these are apparently real emails intended for campaign staffers, that were sent to email addresses at the .org domain (instead of name@georgewbush.com) by mistake.
There could be some real gems in here. In browsing through, I've already spotten a memo intended for Karl Rove, and a weekly report from "Pennsylvania Evangelical Outreach". Kos is already tracking what could be a big story about evidence of voter suppression found here.
And assemble our own army "to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president."
Really. His new video is very explicit on this matter. Not that Eminem can be accused of ever not being explicit.
That's the motto of the amazing site Bush Relatives for Kerry. It's a beautiful, non-shrill bitchslap. Thanks for sending it Carol!!!
That's what this sick and ridiculous ad is clearly saying. Clearly, these are the same kind of people who still get jollies from fag jokes. And, funny thing is, they are voting for a cheerleader.
This administration is so incompetent that it can't even get a traditional GOP "October Surprise" going. Instead, we get this mindbending bulletin about their raging incompetence. Making the world safer-- for terrorists wielding high explosives.
Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.
The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."
Administration officials said Sunday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives.
American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.
The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the same type of material, and larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people.
The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. The other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain.
I would call this unbelievable-- if it weren't possible to believe any amount of stupidity and incompetence about this administration.
If you've seen the GOP's new ad "Wolves," you really need to see this.
Watch this ad from Win Back Respect, which features the sister of a dead soldier who wasn't laughing when Bush joked about not finding any WMDs. Stunning. In testing, it produced an 8 point swing away from Bush-- which it pretty huge for one viewing of one ad.
First Draft sets the record straight amidst Badministration mocking of Kerry's hunting trip.
[W]hile campaigning against incumbent Gov. Ann Richards, Bush thought it would be a great photo opportunity to show the people of Texas that he was the bold epitome of Lone Star Macho, a fearless take-charge kind of guy who could sight-in on any kind of problem. So, he and his gaggle of aides staged a dove hunt to attract the reporters and photographers. He flushed that bird. He looked. He aimed. He shot. Blasted that dove right out of the sky. At least he thought it was a dove. Turns out the bird was really a killdeer, protected by federal law. An embarrassed Bush, who obviously couldn't distinguish a 10-inch long brown-and-white bird with two black bands and a loud and constant whistle from a long greyish/white bird that coos, paid a fine for his stupidity.
Wow, that would have been a great example any of those times W couldn't remember ever making a mistake?
I've said for months that, considering what's been going on since the current administration took control, you have to be either stupid or a Jesus-freak (I realize those are not mutually exclusive) to continue to support Bush. A report today by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland at least proves true the first of my conditions. "How can people continue to support Bush?" they ask. And the answer they find: by being really, really ignorant.
No, seriously. That's what they found.
For example:
72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program.
And most Bush supporters don't even get that because of Bush, the rest of the world hates us. Less than a third of Bush supporters have figured out that we went into Iraq without anyone's blessing, and more than half of them think the rest of the world wants Bush to be re-elected.
Do they pass out LSD at republican conventions or something? I think Timothy Leary had a better grasp on reality than the average republican these days.
EnjoyTheDraft.com is like The Onion, on a really bitter day, with a well-justified sense of paranoia. Perfect for jaded college students. You gotta love the "Tell us why the draft is AWESOME" soundbites:
"Michael Moore might feature my grieving mother in his next movie!" - Joe in Flint"I thought I'd miss my boyfriend when he went to Iraq. How ironic that I got drafted and killed!" - Missie in Miami
"Foshrapnel woundizzle" - Mark in Albuquerque
"The army vaccinated me against Anthrax, Botulism, Smallpox, and Sarin. Once I get the Ricin vaccine I get a happy meal." -Stanley in Denver
"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder excuses a lot of crazy-ass batshit behavior." - Matt in Columbus"I look hot in a black body bag, and I don't even work out." - John in Madison
There's nothing like great satire. Except maybe great satire and a really nice single-malt Scotch to go with it.
If you missed the Ron Suskind article in the Sunday NYT Magazine (and were consequently able to sleep):
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
History's actors, indeed. The article should be required reading. Coming on the heels of a surprising trip to Oklahoma-- where even my grandparents admitted that W was giving them pause with his disconnect from reality-- we now see that the Administration thinks that the American Empire creates its own reality. Would that it were so... but if we do not defeat these people who believe their lies create a new truth, this Republic is toast. If Bush wins, we will all undoubtedly talk more about leaving the country... but the reality will be that our country will have left us.
Oh, after you read the article, buy one of these.
This piece by Paul Krugman in the NYT is a must-read. It describes a series of coordinated Republican operations to deny the vote to primarily Democratic (big-D) voters through abuses (and sometimes, outright felonies) of the democratic (small-d) system of voting. Here is the damning conclusion:
The important point to realize is that these abuses aren't aberrations. They're the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished. It's a culture that will persist until voters - whose will still does count, if expressed strongly enough - hold that party accountable.
Krugman also mentions a forthcoming article in Harpers detailing how errors in the "felony rolls" in Florida which denied thousands of legitimate (and mostly black) voters in Florida the opportunity to vote in 2000 were largely deliberate. These errors have not been corrected. In fact "those attempting to get their votes back have been required to seek clemency for crimes committed by others, or to go through quasi-judicial proceedings to prove that they are not felons with similar names". I look forward to the article, but despair that it's not likely to make the front-page news it ought to.
I hope so. In the 1st debate, the voices in Bush's ear were telling him to scowl. In the 2nd debate, his overcompensation for the previous piss-poor performance came off as desperate and manic, tempered only by his winking at nobody in particular. In the 3rd debate, he was somewhere in between the two, but still lying at will. (See the transcript from the press conference where he brags about not being concerned with Bin Laden.)
But isn't it disappointing that immediately afterwards the right-wing pundits laud Bush as the "clear winner"? Why can't people have a serious debate about the debates –– is it because we're merely mimicking them?
Leave it to The Smoking Gun to post facsimiles of the recent sexual harrassment filing against Bill O'Reilly. The only thing worse than actually watching him scream at people on his show? Reading about how he masturbated while talking dirty to one of his female employees while talking to her on the phone. Apparently, his big turn-ons are vibrators and sex with "little brown women" in third world countries. He also gets off on telling his victim how Bush and Cheney are going to get revenge on Al Franken:
If you cross FOX NEWS Channel, it's not just me, it's Roger Alies who will go after you. I'm the street guy make loud noises about the issues, but Alies operates behind the scenes, strategies and makes things happen so one day BAM! That person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he is going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen trust me.
So one more reason to vote them out of office: otherwise we can look forward to the FBI morphing into O'Reilly's own private Stasi operation.
Just tell them the game is off. And not to bother showing up.
In West Virginia, the Republicans are apparently trying to win the election by calling registered Democrats to tell them they are not registered to vote or that they are but won't be allowed to vote if they go to the polls.
These guys really know how to play dirty.
Kos has the story that has creamy thighs aquiver all across Oklahoma!
Software saves the world--and democracy.
(Am I paranoid for having the thought that I hope this is a joke?)
Grazie to Erik for the link.
If you want to know who is the real flip-flopper, shop at G.W. & Crew. I only wish I had come up with this.
Get a Day Pass to Salon and read this. Now.
Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.
Wow... and I always thought Cheney was the robot on the ticket.
I'm not a big fan of Maureen Dowd, but she's sharp today:
Senator Kerry evoked the voice of Bush 41 to get under 43's thin skin. The more Mr. Kerry played the square, proper, moderate, internationalist war hero, the more the president was reduced to childish scowling and fidgeting, acting like a naughty little boy who refuses to sit in his seat and eat his spinach and do all the hard things a parent wants you to do."You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad beyond Basra," Mr. Kerry said, as W. blinked and burned. "And the reason he didn't is, he said, he wrote in his book, because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today. There's a sense of American occupation."
Mr. Kerry told the now-and-then Guardsman about the "extraordinarily difficult missions" of our troops in Iraq: "I know what it's like to go out on one of those missions where you don't know what's around the corner. And I believe our troops need other allies helping."
Playing the Daddy card was part of the Kerry makeover by the Clintonistas - Bubba eye for the Brahmin guy.
In their '92 debate, Bill Clinton used the same psychological trick to rattle Bush 41. Objecting to the Republican pinko innuendo about a trip he had taken as a young man to Moscow, Mr. Clinton reminded the first President Bush that his father, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, had stood up to Joe McCarthy: "Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism."
The Bushes get very agitated when confronted with the specters of fathers who made them feel that they never measured up.
Didion has a riff about "Appointment in Samarra" in my favorite of her inimitable essays, so Dowd's larger point has been on my mind of late. It is unfortunate that part of the fall of WASP society into cultural irrelevance is our amnesia about their inbred flaws. Were we all as obsessed by their manners as we were in the 1950s and 60s, we would have recognized W on his face for the sad loss that he is.
I'm sure the exhaustive list of business and economic professors who signed the Open Letter to Bush about how dangerous his economic policies have been would like to do just that.
The closing paragraph says it all, really:
Sensible and farsighted economic management requires true discipline, compassion, and courage – not just slogans. Given the tenuous state of the American economy, we believe that the time for an honest assessment of the problem and for genuine corrective action is now. Ignoring the fiscal crisis that has taken hold during your presidency may seem politically appealing in the short run, but we fear it could ultimately prove disastrous. From a policy standpoint, the clear message is that more of the same won’t work. The warning signs are already visible, and it is incumbent upon all of us to pay attention.
Click here to see Bush prove the theory of evolution. For a creationist, he does an amazing job of demonstrating that we humans share 99.4% of our genome with chimps. It's hard work. Hard. Work. Proving your opponents right, that is. He sees it on the TV every day.
The image is big, so I'm sure we'll be paying extra for bandwidth, but it's too good not to share with you.
In the 1st presidential debate, Bush pined for Missy – an anonymous widow recently made so by the Iraq war – and expressed his burning "love" for her. Then here, he complains that OBGYNs can't "love" their patients because of some unnamed setback.
Is Rove up to something with this language, peppering Bush's speeches with code words meant to seep into the psyche of a voting contingent, or is Bush just saying weird shit?
Do not read this if you a) like Dick Cheney or b) dislike vulgarity. (It suggests a debate stance for John Edwards that is just a bit more aggressive than I expect him to be. I do take some relish in this guy's tagline, "Proudly lowering the level of political discourse." It does take quite a lot to get lower than Faux News.
Watch this. Sad, really. Sadder still that America is falling for it.
This should be required viewing. Of all the agit prop animations and samizdat ads we've seen this election cycle, this takes the cake. The visuals are beautiful, but the message is devastatingly grave. It makes an incredibly valuable point: the neoconservatives are not engaged in a conspiracy, but rather have undertaken their palace coup in broad daylight. Shame on us, and farewell the Republic, should we fail to turn them and their pawns out of office. Really, watch this. And pass it on. Huge thanks to Jason for sending the link.
This video from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is great. It juxtaposes some of Bush's statements from the debate with -- who'da thunk it? -- facts. Go watch it.
[This is my latest Backyard Blog post, but who knows if they will run it!]
I received this mail from a reader this morning after last night's debate.
"Having watched the debate two times, I concluded that Kerry did not make much sense about his stand on the Iraq war. At least he agreed that Sadam [sic] was a dangerous leader in the Middle East and replacing him was ok. I don't understand his argument of not the right time and right place for the war even though he voted to go for the war. What make any one think that Kerry knows what would be the right time and right place for the war? That means he would have waited until Sadam [sic] does some thing horrible to this nation?"
My first impulse in responding to this is to say that Kerry wouldn't have whipped a grieving nation into a frenzy with fake intelligence about the "imminent threat" of Iraq. Without Bush & Co.'s amazing sales pitch about why we shoud worry about Saddam instead of Osama (whom they couldn't find, so-- oh look-- shiny object! Over here!) I would imagine we would have had a proper national discussion about Saddam, worked with our allies, and eventually done whatever it would have taken to fully disarm him. Oh yeah, except he had nothing to
disarm!
But at the risk of being rude (and then meeting my correspondent, a la Libby) I don't really think I can have an intelligent discussion with someone who is, at this late date, a believer in the discredited theory that Saddam had it in his capacity to do more than play boogeyman to the U.S. So instead, I'll offer a children's tale. What we've done in Iraq resembles nothing so much as the old story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, wherein crafty Br'er Fox creates an effigy out of sticky tar and connives Br'er Rabbit into attacking it. Complications ensue. There's nothing worse than attacking a big ball of tar, thinking it's a monster... except maybe attacking Iraq when you should be catching Osama and finding yourself locked in a guerrilla war with nothing resembling an exit strategy. What's worse, our presence in Iraq has turned it into a big Tar Baby factory.
Kerry proved last night that Bush is more Br'er Rabbit than he is presidential. Bush hammered away at one point: that no amount of tar would ever convince him that he has made a mistake. Nope, give him four more years and he'll find more messes to get us intractably stuck in. And you can bet he'll look at us with that smug smirk and tell us how "resolute" he is in fighting tar wherever it exists. Wow... "terror" even sounds like "tar" in his fake-Texas accent.
In closing, I'd like to hear from one of our republican friends... how do you think Bush did? Sure you still want four more years of that?
