Friday Mashup Part One (10/15/10)

(Note: After today, posting of actual content is going to be iffy for probably about another week at least.)

1) Let’s start with Jonah Goldberg and get him out of the way as soon as I can (here)…

This is why I never lend out my iPhone when I visit leper colonies:

Goldberg then includes a story about how quickly germs can be spread from the touch screens of iPhones to one’s fingertips, something of particularly note with the onset of the flu season a month or so away.

But for Jonah’s information, leprosy, though it is in decline (as noted here), is definitely not something to joke about. As the Wikipedia article tells us…

Although the forced quarantine or segregation of patients is unnecessary in places where adequate treatments are available, many leper colonies still remain around the world in countries such as India (where there are still more than 1,000 leper colonies),[11] China,[12] Romania,[13] Egypt, Nepal, Somalia, Liberia, Vietnam,[14] and Japan.[15]

If Goldberg is searching for something to laugh about, though, maybe he should tale a look at this.

2) Next, I give you the following from Christopher Rugaber of the AP here…

Numerous polls show voters blame President Barack Obama and his party for the slow economic recovery and the 9.6 percent unemployment rate — not much better than the 9.7 percent rate when the year began.

I know I’ve linked to this a few times already, but I’ll continue to do so whenever lazy reporters like Rugaber say this stuff without any sourcing to back it up.

3) Also, tomorrow is the five-year anniversary of the signing of the Iraqi constitution, as noted here. And at the time, a certain Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History said the following…

“This is a very positive day for the Iraqis and, as well, for world peace,” Bush said in brief remarks to reporters. “Democracies are peaceful countries. The vote today in Iraq stands in stark contrast to the attitudes and philosophy and strategy of al Qaeda and its terrorist friends and killers.”

I wish I could tell you that everything is just hunky dory in Mesopotamia now, but alas I cannot – as noted here…

Washington waits and waits while constantly demanding that Iraq’s government function properly—that its leaders compromise and work together, that it at least provide electricity, trash pick-up, and minimal services to its citizens. Yet all this is impossible because of the structure of government America set up there. Hopelessly dysfunctional, it was doomed from the start.

There is simply no way Iraq’s government could or can succeed. Think first how we destroyed its civil structure—its police, civil service, most of its functions of government, even schoolteachers were fired en masse. Then it’s easier to comprehend that Washington also set up an unworkable government. Indeed, an article in the American Prospect, “The Apprentice,” indicates that wrecking Iraq as a nation state was intentional.

…

“The constitution may well be more of a prelude to civil war than a step forward,” warned another expert in 2005, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Rather than an inclusive document, it is more a recipe for separation based on Shiite and Kurdish privilege,” he wrote, as quoted in an article by Robin Wright in the Washington Post. The Post report also warned that “the Shiite and Kurdish militias are the de facto security forces in their territories and are loyal to their own political leaders.”

By 2006, then CIA director Michael Hayden was acknowledging that in Iraq, “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible.” He added, “We and the Iraqi government do not agree on who the enemy is … . It’s a legitimate question whether strengthening the Iraqi security forces helps or hurts, when they are viewed as a predatory element.”

…

Washington’s neoconservatives may look benignly on an Iraq whose dysfunctional government serves as an excuse to keep the region occupied with 50,000 troops and massive air bases. But America’s “mission accomplished” has created an unstable, economically devastated nation that will be yet another constant source of instability for the whole Middle East.

And this is from a conservative publication, people.

4) Finally, Michael Gerson profiled Christopher Hitchens today in the WaPo (here). And don’t ask me about the column, because I barely read a word of it. And that’s because I’m tired of our media wasting precious online type and column inches over this guy.

I’m sorry that Hitchens is dying from cancer. I hope his passing from this world comes with as little pain as possible. But somehow I can’t help but get the feeling that our media is hanging with this man through every final hour and second waiting for some moment of clarity in which he’ll exclaim, “Oh God, praise Jesus! You were right all along, and I was wrong!”

That clearly isn’t going to happen (I have a low regard generally for Hitchens, but I’ll give him credit for remaining true to his beliefs).

And I also think it’s more than a little disingenuous for our corporate media to give Hitchens a “deathbed conversion” and ignore moments like the one here, where (speaking of Iraq) he criticized Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes for making the rather astute connection between the war and the flooding of cheap credit in the early part of this decade to inflate the housing bubble, in which our ruling cabal turned our economy into a casino.

Also (linked to the post), Hitchens claimed that Martin Luther King, Jr. “doesn’t deserve his acclaim,” and Hillary Clinton is “an aging and resentful female.”

And last but perhaps least, I give you this Hitchens moment from an episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”

So, let us allow Hitchens to leave us with as little fanfare as possible, please. I will grant that he should be allowed the dignity to spend his final days as he chooses (which he denied to those caught up in the Iraq maelstrom that he considered “worth the price,” but there you are).

Before he goes, though, I’ll give him the salute that he so gleefully gave his detractors on the Bill Maher program…

Monday Mashup Part One (9/20/10)

1) We know that our corporate media is just so in love with those zany teabaggers, though only now (with the victory of Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware U.S. Senate Repug primary) are they truly getting wise to the division between the frothing rank and file with their allegedly humorous signs and funny hats and the corporatist bunch fronted by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, among others, that truly calls the shots, and always will.

However, as the New York Times reported here yesterday, it turns out that there is at least one pretty serious intra-teabagger division, and that would be between the Tea Party Express and Tea Party Patriots…

Unlike many of the newly energized outsiders who have embraced Tea Party ideals, (Sal) Russo, 63, is a longtime Republican operative who got his start as an aide to Ronald Reagan and later raised money and managed media strategy for a string of other politicians, including former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. His history and spending practices have prompted some former employees and other Tea Party activists to question whether he is committed to, or merely exploiting, their cause.

Mr. Russo’s group, based in California, is now the single biggest independent supporter of Tea Party candidates, raising more than $5.2 million in donations since January 2009, according to federal records. But at least $3 million of that total has since been paid to Mr. Russo’s political consulting firm or to one controlled by his wife, according to federal records.

While most of that money passed through the firms to cover advertising and other expenses, that kind of self-dealing raises red flags about possible lax oversight and excessive fees for the firms, campaign finance experts said.

“They are the classic top-down organization run by G.O.P. consultants, and it is the antithesis of what the Tea Party movement is about,” said Mark Meckler, a national spokesman for Tea Party Patriots, a coalition of grass-roots organizations that does not endorse or contribute to candidates.

As noted here, though…

The association with GOP causes and candidates disturbs those involved with the Tea Party Patriots who say they are working against the perception that the movement is merely a raucous arm of the GOP.

“Our biggest problem right now has been that the Republican Party is trying to make us part of them,” said Dawn Wildman of San Diego, the California co-coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “We’re not all Republicans, and that notion is insulting to even those of us like myself who are Republicans.”

Hey, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck (or screams to the top of its lungs about “death panels” like a duck)…

And I got a bit of a kick out of this from yesterday’s Times story…

Mr. Russo estimated that Russo & Marsh, and his wife’s company, King Media Group, had been paid about $250,000 a year for their work with the Tea Party cause.

An analysis of Federal Election Commission records by The Times puts the total amount paid — for commissions, services and wages to executives and staff members — at nearly $700,000 in the last 20 months, or about 13 percent of the $5.2 million the committee has spent. (By comparison, media buyers for candidates’ campaigns typically take a 6 percent to 15 percent commission, according to one consultant.)

But the campaign finance records for the Tea Party Express also showed payments totaling more than $10,000 for stays at casino hotels, as well as bills for meals at expensive restaurants near Mr. Russo’s offices, including nearly $5,000 at Chops Steak House, which former staff members said the Tea Party Express frequented after work.

“I was kind of shocked,” said Kelly Eustis, who served as political director at the Tea Party Express until leaving last fall. “It kind of turned me off.”

Mr. Russo disputes that there was any lavish spending. “There have been a lot of cheap shots taken,” he said. “This has not been a profitable activity for us. We have plowed every penny back into this thing.”

Uh huh, sure (and keep telling me how those teabaggers are totally an organic creation without corporate support…yeah, that’s a good one).

2) Next, I give you the following from The Weakly Standard (here)…

The Florida Democratic Party sent out a mailer last week detailing Republican congressional challenger Allen West’s 2005 tax lien and court orders to pay delinquent credit card bills. West is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein.

The mailer includes a reproduction of the $11,081 tax lien filed against West in Marion County, Indiana, and paid off four months later. The document, pulled from public records, includes a column titled “Identifying Number” that shows West’s nine-digit Social Security number. Although the number isn’t specifically identified as a Social Security number, West campaign manager Josh Grodin said there is no mistaking what the number is.

I will grant you that this probably wasn’t the most astute move by the Klein campaign, particularly since the lien against West was paid off a few months later. But before we start to drown in GOP crocodile tears over the publishing of sensitive information, let’s consider the following from 2008, shall we (from here, specifically concerning Ohio)…

1) A Republican sheriff in Greene County, Ohio, has demanded social security and other records from 302 local voters whose ballots he apparently wants to negate. Sheriff Gene Fischer has requested registration cards and address forms for all Greene County residents who voted in a special session established in Ohio allowing new voters to register and vote on the same day. The process was challenged in court by the GOP. The Ohio Supreme Court turned down that challenge, and allowed the same-day voting to proceed. But now Fischer claims telephone calls complaining about the potential for voter fraud have prompted him to go after the information.

…

It is widely assumed that the same-day registration/voting option was exercised primarily by students who lean heavily Democratic. In 2004, African-American students from Wright State, Central State and Wilberforce were regularly challenged on their registration credentials and forced to endure waiting in lines to vote for hours. Students at Cedarville, a Christian school, made no such reports. Sheriff Fischer’s targeting of historically black college students, the core of Obama-mania, is intended to send a chilling effect through the ranks of these Democratic voters.

2) U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith, a Reagan appointee, has approved a GOP lawsuit demanding that the state give county boards of elections great leeway in attacking new voter registration forms. The decision, framed under the Help America Vote Act, would allow Republican challengers access to data from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security agency to challenge new voters. The Judge noted that Ohio law permits challenges to absentee ballots, thousands of which have been pouring in to elections boards. If allowed to stand, it could give the GOP the right to shred ballots already cast in the Buckeye State, with the precedent possibly being used to further enable a GOP nationwide disenfranchisement campaign. Smith gave Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner a week to respond. Brunner has stated she will appeal.

…

4) The New York Times has reported that boards of elections in at least nine crucial states, including Ohio, have violated federal law in conducting purges and have been illegally using Social Security data bases as part of those purges.

And besides, I’d rather have a candidate I support commit a boneheaded mistake like this than threaten his opponent to “make him scared to come out of his house” (third item here).

3) Finally, the formerly-Moonie times is here to tell us about the next phony “war” (as opposed to the real on in Afghanistan and the unofficial one in Iraq, where combat operations have officially “ended” – here), and that would be over our household appliances (I wish I were making this up)…

Modern technology has delivered a solution to this pesky problem of consumers not doing as they’re told (supposedly in In last year’s $814 billion stimulus package, President Obama poured 3.4 billion tax dollars into subsidies for “smart grid” projects designed to centralize control over major appliances that use electricity. The program, of course, is marketed as an advance that will deliver new options and savings to the consumer. The two-way communication underlying the concept, however, eventually will make it possible for big-ticket electrical items to be controlled remotely. In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter called on every American “to lower the thermostat settings in all homes and buildings to no more than 65 degrees during the daytime and to a much lower setting at night.” Now the smart grid enables Big Brother to turn it down for you.

I can see it now – the ultimate revenge of Rosie The Robot on “The Jetsons,” who I suppose finally got tired of picking up George’s slippers and cleaning out Astro’s dog food bowl and made a deal with Spacely Sprockets to take over the household….BWAHAHAHHAHA!!! (Cue diabolical laughter).

Meanwhile, in the world of reality, this tells us more about a “smart” grid…

The function of an Electrical grid is not a single entity but an aggregate of multiple networks and multiple power generation companies with multiple operators employing varying levels of communication and coordination, most of which is manually controlled. Smart grids increase the connectivity, automation and coordination between these suppliers, consumers and networks that perform either long distance transmission or local distribution tasks.

• Transmission networks move electricity in bulk over medium to long distances, are actively managed, and generally operate from 345kV to 800kV over AC and DC lines.
• Local networks traditionally moved power in one direction, “distributing” the bulk power to consumers and businesses via lines operating at 132kV and lower.

This paradigm is changing as businesses and homes begin generating more wind and solar electricity, enabling them to sell surplus energy back to their utilities.

Wow, what a concept – actually being able to sell power back to Exelon or whomever.

Also (from here)…

Early results suggest that residential consumers will change their consumption patterns in response to real-time feedback on electricity usage. Real-time, or “direct,” feedback is typically provided by an in-home display that communicates with a consumer’s smart meter as part of a larger advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). In a 2009 survey of North American pilot projects, Ahmad Faruqui of the Brattle Group found that consumers reduced their usage from 3% to 18% in response to direct feedback from an in-home display. Another recent report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that real-time usage feedback resulted in average energy savings of 9% across surveyed programs. As utilities proceed with scheduled AMI deployments, additional consumers will have the opportunity to participate in demand response programs through the use of in-home displays.

But I’m sure we’ll receive more warnings from wingnut media that we can’t possibly proceed with something like this. After all, Iman Rauf may be secretly trying to make sure all of our solar panels will be pointed towards Mecca, and Osama bin Laden (remember him?) may be trying turn our Kitchen-Aid mixers into nuclear warheads while the kids are sleeping and we’re “upstairs with the wife.”

(And the really sad part is that there’s probably somebody out there who thinks I’m serious.)

Another “Thanks” To Dubya And His Pals On Iraq

This clip, with K.O. interviewing Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, should be required viewing for everyone; kudos to Scahill for his passion on this subject.

Thursday Mashup (9/2/10)

1) Want more information on why our discourse is stupid?

The Discovery Channel hostage gunman, James Jay Lee, is killed in a standoff (fortunately, no one else was killed or injured – good work by law enforcement), but is not universally condemned as a terrorist (here).

Holocaust Museum gunman James von Brunn, who killed a museum guard, isn’t universally condemned as a terrorist either; indeed, he is equated with Thomas Jefferson by the nutball who just had that D.C. rally claiming that we have to return to God, or something (here).

Joseph Andrew Stack flies a plane into an IRS government building in downtown Austin, TX, killing one person beside himself and injuring 13, but the White House (!) doesn’t consider that to be an act of terrorism either (here).

Do you want to know what is universally considered to be an act of terrorism in this country? The Times Square would-be bomber who (thank God) killed or injured absolutely no one (here).

Just food for thought, that’s all…

2) Next, with the for-real, crossing-our-fingers-this-time proclamation that combat operations in Iraq have ended, we have the following from Daniel Henninger of the Murdoch Street Journal (here, on the matter of whether Saddam Hussein was the threat he was purported to be when we invaded – yes, they’re still rehashing this)…

Mr. Obama and others believe that Saddam and his nuclear ambitions could have been contained. I think exactly the opposite was likely.

At the time of Mr. Obama’s 2002 antiwar speech, three other significant, non-Iraqi events were occurring: Iran and North Korea were commencing toward a nuclear break-out, and A.Q. Khan was on the move.

In March 2002, Mr. Khan, the notorious Pakistani nuclear materials dealer, moved his production facilities from Pakistan to Malaysia.

In August, an Iranian exile group revealed the existence of a centrifuge factory in Natanz, Iran.

A month later, U.S. intelligence concluded that North Korea had almost completed a “production-scale” centrifuge facility.

It was also believed in 2002 that al Qaeda was shopping for nuclear materials. In The Wall Street Journal this week, Jay Solomon described how two North Korean operatives through this period developed a network to acquire nuclear technologies.

In short, the nuclear bad boys club was on the move in 2002. Can anyone seriously believe that amidst all this Saddam Hussein would have contented himself with administering his torture chambers? This is fanciful.

No it isn’t. I’ll tell you what is, though.

I book a flight to the Luxor Las Vegas. Two days before I’m due to depart, I order Chinese take out and get a fortune cookie telling me that I’ll be rich beyond my wildest dreams. The next day, I win a game of Monopoly by buying both Boardwalk and Park Place and bankrupting my opponents through exorbitant rent payments. For this reason, I believe that I’m on the proverbial “roll” and drain my savings account, then depart, looking to get rich by spending all my dough on games of roulette and craps.

Hey, if Henninger can take all kinds of unconnected stuff and try forcing connections wherever he wants, I should be able to do that also, right?

Continuing…

The definitive account of Saddam’s WMD ambitions is the Duelfer Report, issued by the Iraq Survey Group in 2005. Yes, the Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam didn’t have active WMD. But at numerous points in the 1,000-page document, it asserted (with quotes from Iraqi politicians and scientists) that Saddam’s goal was to free himself of U.N. sanctions and restart his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other WMD.

Which, based on the actual Duelfer report, was as likely as me winning at the Luxor (here).

And this from a column aptly named “Wonder Land”…

3) Finally, I came across this item in the New York Times…

WASHINGTON — Christina D. Romer, chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in a farewell speech on Wednesday that the administration’s stimulus policies averted “a second Great Depression.”

But she also gave her most detailed explanation yet for why her original forecast that unemployment would peak at 8 percent “was so far off.”

Ms. Romer’s last day as one of the four principals on Mr. Obama’s economic team is Friday, which means one of her last acts will be to provide the administration’s reaction to the latest unemployment report.

For the last year those reports have been a monthly refutation of her early projection. The report for August, expected to show the jobless rate remaining near 9.5 percent, will be no different.

With Republicans continually reminding voters of the erroneous forecast, it undercut Ms. Romer’s effectiveness as a public spokeswoman for administration policies.

Really? Funny, but I thought she did a good job here.

And when it comes to the economy, let’s not forget what Romer and the economic advisors inherited (here, talking about what transpired between 2001 and 2008)…

–The number of Americans living in poverty has jumped from 31.6 million to 36.5 million.
–The uninsured population has grown from 38 million to 47 million.
–The annual total premium cost has nearly doubled from $6,230 per family to $12,106 per family.
(Bush’s heartless health care policy: Let the markets sort it out. Business first, human beings later.)
–The trade deficit has more than doubled from $380 billion to $759 billion.
–Our dependency on foreign oil has shot up from 52.75% of fuel consumption to 60.38%. (Sweetheart trade deals benefit mega-corporations and oil companies, but not people.)

And now that I’ve made that point, I need to vent about something else (and I’m probably just an impudent upstart for calling out my “A” list “betters” again, but here goes).

I watched “Countdown” last night and saw Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, talk about how he’s doing his best to get labor motivated on behalf of the Democrats in the upcoming elections.

And I swear to God, I wish I saw a fraction of that enthusiasm from my blogging brethren out there.

If I read one more “Obama hasn’t done this like he said he would, and for that reason, I or people I know just don’t have any enthusiasm for the Democrats” post, I’m going to vomit (including this one, and I know the author knows better…in response, try imagining a national “papers, please” law based on the Arizona atrocity, and don’t think that can’t happen if the Repugs win Congress).

Update: As long as I was critical earlier, I should be fair and point out that this is something that should be on every blog even remotely related to Democratic Party activism.

Now that doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to support, say, Blanche Lincoln (or John Adler, or most any other “Bush Dog” who really does deserve to get retired). But there are plenty of other worthy Democratic candidates whose “tossup” electoral prospects are an utter mystery to me (Russ Feingold for one).

Yes, by all means, call Obama and the Democrats to account for not working harder for immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for illegals who do the right thing (I always thought “pay a fine and get in line” was the sort of nice, catchy little slogan the Repugs seem to churn out like crazy but the Dems never seem to be able to master). Get Gibbs, Emanuel, Axelrod and the rest into a room and try to identify the drug they’re consuming that makes them actually believe that the “catfood commission” is doing something constructive (and I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t disappointed also).

But let’s do this after the election, OK?

I’ll repeat myself some more from an earlier post, but I don’t care; take a guess as to what we have to look forward to under a Repug U.S. Congress, with Majority Leader Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell (Paul Krugman spelled it out in this column):

Endless investigations. A new “revelation” every day about the First Family (get ready for the return of Bill Ayres, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and hearings into the alleged “New Black Panther Party” Philadelphia polling scandal on Election Day 2008, for starters). And no legislation (none of any good to us, anyway).

Privatizing Social Security. Defunding Health Care Reform. The return of Tax Cuts for the Rich which will “pay for themselves.” Bye Bye Cap And Trade. Endless investigations. Testimony of Cabinet members before Congress as to why they’re actually doing their jobs instead of rolling over for the institutions they’re supposed to regulate, as they did under Dubya.

So long Lilly Ledbetter Law. New restrictions on stem cell research. Legislation to enshrine the worst excesses of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. Reopening “K” Street for business. A bill to abolish Net Neutrality forever.

Oh, and did I mention Endless investigations? And don’t think the “I” word is out of the question either, people.

Basically, we can sit around and mope and let the corporate media narratives define themselves, or we can become involved again as we once were to build the majorities we should be working to defend with all the energy and talent we can muster (I don’t know how many of you were paying attention to the Congressional politics of the ‘90s, but I definitely was, and I never want to see those days again).

If we choose the former path, destruction is imminent, and it will be irrevocable. And despite the ways those we’ve supported have fallen short, we really will only have ourselves to blame if they get turned out. Imagine how silly we will feel while the “Tea Party” Repugs rule the roost and we’re still licking our wounds over the fact that the stimulus was only $787 billion instead of $1.2 trillion.

If we choose the latter path, we can stand the people working for news organizations with initials for names on their heads, as it were, as they search for their next narrative (and wouldn’t it be nice if it were “A Dem Resurgence Confounds The Republican Revival,” or something like it?).

The Republican Party as we know it today, full of doctrinaire, “movement” conservatives, was in utter ruins after Barry Goldwater lost when he ran for president in 1964. But they rebuilt themselves, recruiting conservatives as lawyers, journalists, politicians and other professions to further their cause. And by the time 1980 came, they saw the perfect opportunity to enshrine one of their own to the highest office in the land.

It took them 16 years to get what they wanted, but they got it (to our almost eternal ruin). And we’re complaining that we haven’t turned things around in a fraction of that amount of time?

And by the way (speaking of the enthusiasm gap), I thought this was an interesting post on the latest Gallup findings (namely, that crowing over the 10-point Repug lead on the generic ballot – I heard nothing but crickets when the Dems were up in that poll a couple of months ago).

Update 9/7/10: OMG!!!! Lookie, lookie here – why, the Dems and Repugs ARE TIED! in the latest Gallup generic ballot. Hey, what does our corporate media have to say NOW??!!

…

(zzzzzzzzzz………)

A Musical Reminder For McConnell

Note to Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao: watch this video and try explaining to me how Number 43 should get credit for anything, you soulless shill (here).

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/31/10)

1) In response to this story, I would like to ask the following questions:

Where is the U.S. Congressional committee with subpoena power looking into the massive thievery of taxpayer funds designated for the reconstruction of Iraq (a topic that is noticeably missing in this triumphal column on the subject by BoBo today)?

Where is Attorney General Eric Holder and his arrest warrants for those allegedly responsible for this genuine scandal?

And why aren’t the members of our prior ruling cabal being called to account by our media and all of our institutions of government (and why is this story basically being ignored – yes, I know, everyone is focused on the economy, but that really isn’t an excuse, is it?).

And why isn’t this person being called to account first for the insulting stupidity of her remarks on this subject from December 2008, noted by Think Progress?

2) And speaking of investigations, look at what Fix Noise is telling us (here)…

The Veterans Affairs Administration is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to maintain hundreds of buildings – most of them vacant – that have fallen into such a state of disrepair that many of them are considered health hazards, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals.

Exactly how much it costs to maintain the run-down and abandoned buildings is a matter of dispute. The General Accountability Office estimates that the VA has spent $175 million every year since 2007. But the VA disputes that figure, saying it spent $85 million on the buildings in 2007 and only $37 million last year.

Whatever the figure, the timing couldn’t be worse for the VA, as tens of thousands of American troops, many of whom have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, prepare to return to the U.S. and will require the expensive medical, psychological and support services it provides.

Wow, talk about being “late for the party” – by about three years in this case…

For you see, Fix Noise and their brethren basically ignored the scandal of how the VA was run when it was first reported by Anne Hull and Dana Priest of the WaPo here, including the particularly infamous “Building 18” of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, described as follows…

When (a) wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

And how did Fox and its right-wing brethren react at the time? I think Steve Young captures that pretty well here.

But of course, now that Dubya is long gone (thank God) and we have a Democrat in the White House, Fix Noise is paying attention, as well as concocting propaganda that Obama was pushing a plan to get our vets to pay more for health care (here) and encouraging them to commit suicide (here – particularly despicable even for Fox).

That, however, is very much in keeping with the “M.O.” of this bunch, as noted here.

3) Finally, we have a particularly propagandistic screed from Cal Thomas (here)…

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy.

Responding to Cronkite’s reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

Now President Obama appears to have “lost” New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman, who enthusiastically supported the president’s redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working. In a recent column titled “This is Not a Recovery,” Krugman took issue with the president and Vice President Joe Biden that we have experienced a summer of economic recovery. “Unfortunately, that’s not true,” he wrote. “This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policymakers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.”

And of course Thomas then launches into a commercial for the RNC and its supposed economic platform, which of course is a rehash of every bad idea over the last 30 years or so that got us into this mess to begin with.

I realize that only a fool would actually expect Thomas to tell the truth, but it’s particularly galling for him to take Krugman’s statements so thoroughly out of context, given that Krugman also said the following (here)…

In the case of the Obama administration, officials seem loath to admit that the original stimulus was too small. True, it was enough to limit the depth of the slump — a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment would probably be well into double digits now without the stimulus — but it wasn’t big enough to bring unemployment down significantly.

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

And besides, given this incorrigible dreck, Thomas really should stay away from any historical references whatsoever.

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/24/10)

1) Interesting stuff from BoBo in the New York Times today (here – not necessarily good, mind you, just interesting)…

…in general, the culture places less emphasis on the need to struggle against one’s own mental feebleness. Today’s culture is better in most ways, but in this way it is worse.

The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.

Uh, actually the question isn’t “uncomfortable” at all.

In as much as the surge “worked,” it did so also because of the ethnic cleansing that preceded it and because of the Sunni Awakening, which basically went after al Qaeda operatives in concert with the fine work of our military (and as you might expect, I see no equivalency between this matter and that of Repugs who will never believe Obama is anything but a SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM SCARY MUSLIM!!!).

And if BoBo needs more proof that Iraq can hardly be called a success, I give you this from one of Brooks’ former colleagues (and a highly unlikely source, I know).

When that country has a government that actually functions and shares power between its perpetually warring (either politically or for real) factions (and can provide more than a few hours of electricity per day for residents of Baghdad), THEN Brooks can crow about how wonderful Mesopotamia supposedly is now.

2) Next, I give you the latest from Tucker Carlson’s scribble page (here, on a bit of a similar theme)…

Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.

The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush’s economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker’s Randall Hoven points out, that’s the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation’s Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.

I’ll cut to the chase a bit here and tell you that the right-wing argument is that the “stim” costs more than the Iraq war, so Obama is more at fault for our deficit than Dubya.

Yes, sadly, I’m serious.

In response, I give you the following (here, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)…

The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term.

In rather stark terms, Paul Krugman (h/t Atrios) tells us here that, if ever there was a time to borrow like crazy and create all kinds of “shovel ready” infrastructure projects, it is right now, with a 10-year Treasury rate of 2.53 percent.

But of course, if we do that, the invisible bond vigilantes will descend from the planet Klorp in their spaceships, capture our women and children and enslave us in debt forever, so we won’t (and that explanation is only a shade stupider than what passes for conventional wisdom on this subject these days).

3) Finally, this post from Forbes tells us the following (staying with the economy a bit)…

No matter how many Obama economists say that stimulus has a positive multiplier, it’s simply not true. Stimulus spending does not stimulate. Because it takes resources from growing sectors of the economy and pushes them to shrinking sectors of the economy– it de-stimulates. It taxes and borrows from good business models to support bad business models.

It’s simple math. Enlarging government means shrinking the private sector. History is clear: The larger the government share of GDP, the higher the unemployment rate.

Well, for stimulus spending that supposedly did not “stimulate,” the CBO told us last May that it is projected to create a total of 3.7 million jobs (here – and yes, I know this is familiar territory).

However, the reason I’m highlighting this story is to counter it with this Daily Kos post, which tells us the following…

Businesses aren’t creating jobs, and they have no intention of doing so unless they see signs that consumers will again resume spending. Consumers won’t be spending as long as they have nothing or too little to spend. It’s a feedback loop. There is only one way to break it. It has to be the government. The government has to create jobs. Infrastructure. Clean energy. Mass transit. There are plenty of social goods for government to fund, and there are plenty of people who are willing and able to be trained and employed. It has to happen. And only the government can do it.

I also wanted to highlight the Forbes story for this item…

But before you think that we have slipped into pessimism, we expect growth to accelerate in the year ahead and we expect the unemployment rate to fall further.

I think the true Repug “base” just tipped its hand here.

Anyone who thinks that our august captains of industry in this country are merely impartial observers in our electoral process (particularly after the horrific Citizens United ruling, which opened the proverbial floodgates of corporate campaign donations) must also believe that those zany teabaggers are scholars of Constitutional law.

They have a vested interest in seeing that the Democrats get trounced this fall (and here is the proof). Whether or not that happens (and let’s do all we can to make sure it doesn’t), they will do what is in their best interest regardless.

And if that means a bit of a hiring uptick which ends up getting much more than offset by further gains in their wealth (which would tie neatly into the story line that even a modest Repug victory in Congress is a “miracle cure” for the economy), well, lah dee dah, lah dee dah….

Tuesday Mashup (8/3/10)

1) Even the animals are feeling the effects of the wars (here)…

Gina was a playful 2-year-old German shepherd when she went to Iraq as a highly trained bomb-sniffing dog with the military, conducting door-to-door searches and witnessing all sorts of noisy explosions.

She returned home to Colorado cowering and fearful. When her handlers tried to take her into a building, she would stiffen her legs and resist. Once inside, she would tuck her tail beneath her body and slink along the floor. She would hide under furniture or in a corner to avoid people.

A military veterinarian diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder _ a condition that some experts say can afflict dogs just like it does humans.

“She showed all the symptoms and she had all the signs,” said Master Sgt. Eric Haynes, the kennel master at Peterson Air Force Base. “She was terrified of everybody and it was obviously a condition that led her down that road.”

A year later, Gina is on the mend. Frequent walks among friendly people and a gradual reintroduction to the noises of military life have begun to overcome her fears, Haynes said.

Haynes describes her progress as “outstanding.”

I came across this after reading another spot-on column by Bob Herbert today on Iraq and Afghanistan (describing the effects on humans who are serving and those non-serving who are sick of the wars and want to end them, bring our people home, do our best to try and heal their wounds and fix our country as well).

And by the way, the VA recently finalized regulations on processing PTSD claims as of July 13th; to learn more about the regs and obtain related information, click here.

2) And in news of the California gubernatorial contest, Repug Meg Whitman is outspending Dem Jerry Brown 86-1 (here).

And she still trails (here).

3) Also, Joke Line is at it again (here, on the matter of the upcoming congressional elections)…

The total damage assessment will have to wait until election day. As I wrote a few weeks ago, the Democrats’ losses may fall short of the 1994 wipeout–the loss of the Senate is still a prohibitive longshot. But the House is in jeopardy, especially–as always–its most moderate members. It will be interesting to see if a House composed entirely of radical Republicans and safe-seat liberal troglodytes is any more successful than the current disaster. I suspect not.

I’d like to introduce Joke to a concept called “reporting,” and by that I mean that he should bother to read the information from this link listing the accomplishments of the 110th Congress, which he, being a scion of villager punditry, considers a “disaster.”

Has this congress had its share of pratfalls? Yes. However, let’s consider them in light of the good that has been done, outpacing the wretched, Repug-run 109th, shall we?

Do I actually think Klein will bother to take me up on this, though?

I suspect not.

4) Finally, this tells us the following…

Angry relatives of 9/11 victims last night clashed with supporters of a planned mosque near Ground Zero at a raucous community-board hearing in Manhattan.

After four hours of public debate, members of Community Board 1 finally voted 29-1 in support of the project. Nine members abstained, arguing that they wanted to table the issue and vote at a later date.

The board has no official say over whether the estimated $100 million mosque and community center gets built. But the panel’s support, or lack of it, is considered important in influencing public opinion.

Holding up photos of loved ones killed in the Twin Towers and carrying signs such as, “Honor 3,000, 9/11 — No mosque!” opponents of the proposed Cordoba House on Park Place called the plan an insult to the terror-attack victims.

“That is a burial ground,” said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Al Santora, referring to the fact that victims’ remains were scattered for blocks.

Santora’s 23-year-old son, Christopher, was the youngest firefighter to die that day.

“I do have a problem with having a mosque on top of the site where [terrorists] can gloat about what they did,” said Santora, with his wife, Maureen, by his side.

I’m not taking sides on this one way or the other, but I just wanted to note the following in response.

This tells us about the Second Schweinfurt Memorial Association, Inc. (SSMA); here is how the group came to be formed as a result of a horrific WWII battle…

At dawn, on October 14, 1943, in foul weather, the 8th Army Air Force, also known as the Mighty 8th, dispatched 291 B-17 bombers to the town of Schweinfurt Germany, a flight of some 800 miles. Since this city was vital to the ball bearing industry, it was at the top of the list of strategic targets for the allied forces and had already received a first attack on August 17, 1943.

The bombers were initially protected by friendly fighter escort, which were forced to turn back about half way to the targets. Arriving at the target, the bombers were attacked by an estimated 1,100 enemy fighters firing cannon and large caliber rockets manned by the German Lufwaffenhelfer (LWH) or flak-helpers. The vicious attacks were continued and repulsed until the bombers reached the English Channel on the return flight to England.

The battle brought great loss to both sided. Sixty heavy bombers and 600 airmen perished. Many lost their lives in the burning, badly damaged, crashed planes. Many became prisoners of war. Fifteen additional aircraft were so damaged they could never fly again. On the ground, 276 people died and countless more were injured. Businesses and homes were razed. Valuable and treasured possessions perished. Consequently, October 14, 1943 – Mission 115, became known as “Black Thursday” in American military history and one of the greatest air battles of World War II.

Thirty years later some of the survivors from the Mighty 8th, including Colonel Budd Peaslee, S/Sgt. Phillip Taylor and 1st Lt. William Allen, decided to form an organization to commemorate their fallen comrades-in-arms. They called it the Second Schweinfurt Memorial Association, Inc. (SSMA), giving it direct connection to the second air raid on Schweinfurt.

The story also tells us that…

“(on) the 50th Anniversary, two Germans, Dr. Helmut Katzenberger and Vomar Wilckens came to the reunion in New Orleans to present to the group information they had on that fateful day. Then in 1996, the SSMA members invited more of their former enemies, including Georg Schaefer, whose grandfather founded one of the “targeted” ball bearing factories, to attend their reunion in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr. Schaefer, now retired from the Board of Directors of FAG Kuglefischer, had served, along with his classmates, in one of the 8.8 cm Flakbatteries around Schweinfurt. He brought many artifacts from “Black Thursday”. Many of these artifacts are permanently included in the Second Schweinfurt display at the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.

It was at this reunion that the Americans suggested erecting a joint memorial remembering this mission. Mr. Schaefer presented this idea to his fellow Luftwafferhelfers, who embraced the idea and June 16, 1998 a German American Memorial was dedicated on a former air raid bunker site in Schweinfurt.”

It should be noted that, concerning the proposed mosque near the WTC site, a memorial to the victims of the attacks has been proposed, as noted here.

I’m not saying that the mosque is a good idea at this point. I’m also not saying that the wishes of the friends and families shouldn’t be paramount here (they should).

All I’m saying is that an earlier generation of combatants was able to put aside its differences to the point where they could construct a memorial honoring the sacrifices made by both sides.

I’m just saying that it’s possible to do that. That’s all.

Tuesday Mashup Part One (7/6/10)

1) I recently came across this interesting item at The Daily Beast pertaining to a certain 43rd President of the United States. It seems that, in the aftermath of 9/11 (recounted by author Randall Lane)…

…the State Department hired a highly regarded Washington-based custom media company, TMG, which in turn hired me. Working with a squad of Arab-born Americans, including a smart, opinionated Libyan, a poetic Syrian, and a diligent Palestinian, I would craft America’s public face for the part of the world that hated us most, as translated via the cover and substance of a glossy magazine.

The magazine came to be known as “Hi!” – the thinking was that, even if the name was highly unoriginal, at least it was an English word that everyone seemed to know.

It sounded good so far. However…

…as the memory of 9/11 began to fade, so did the magazine’s utopian mission. Congressmen began complaining that rather than show young Arabs how Western society works, Hi! should tell them why American policies are right. The initiative’s leadership got incrementally political: The undersecretary for public diplomacy, a former advertising CEO named Charlotte Beers, was replaced by a veteran from the previous Bush administration, Margaret Tutwiler, and then, eventually, by President Bush’s top image-maker, Karen Hughes. A State Department panel of ham-fisted political appointees now began actively reviewing our content before we printed it, as the new war in Iraq turned increasingly unpopular.

One of my favorite sections loosely translated to “Window on America.” It was a simple conceit: a photo essay showing what America actually looks like, unfiltered. A bass fishing tournament, a breast-cancer walk, the Puerto Rican Day parade—these were exotic images to most Arabs, too often poisoned about the United States by their inflammatory local press. But during one review meeting, held before a star chamber of 10 high-level State Department officials, the co-leader specifically took offense to a photograph from a classic Western scene: campers and pack mules heading out on a rugged weekend expedition.

Our team always remained vigilant about cultural sensibilities, avoiding the bottoms of shoes, or bare arms, or other seemingly innocuous images that could backfire with the Arab audience. This official’s concerns, however, were more parochial. She held up the offending photo, as wholesome as a Norman Rockwell painting, and pointed to a pack mule that, by other names, might be known as a donkey. This has to go, she said. Too pro-Democrat. And out it went.

As we know from the dark Bushco days, politics trumped all else (as it did here, when Karen Hughes refused to answer some pretty “vanilla” questions from Sen. John Kerry about whether or not she had any knowledge concerning former CIA agent Valerie Plame, though Hughes was still confirmed for a top PR job with the State Department – by the way, on that subject, Plame’s husband Joe Wilson wrote the New York Times Op-Ed refuting the so-called “Niger letter” about Saddam Hussein supposedly receiving uranium from that country seven years ago today…how time flies).

2) Also, Ken Blackwell returns to spread more propaganda at clownhall.com (here), this time about NPR…

Pro-lifers have long understood the issue of media bias. Years ago, the late, pro-choice David Shaw wrote a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times showing how biased his own newspaper was when reporting on abortion. Shaw showed that bias came through not just on stories about abortion. Shaw showed how even stories that related to surgery on unborn children were skewed or spiked to avoid anything that might have a pro-life message.

Now, we have National Public Radio (NPR) lining up to support the pro-abortion side in the ongoing struggle over this issue. Managing Editor David Sweeney recently issued a memorandum to staff ordering them to use only the politically correct designations for the contending sides in the debate: abortion rights advocates is the approved way of referring to those who favor liberalized abortion; abortion rights opponents is the only way NPR will refer, from now on, to pro-lifers.

This should not come as any great shock to us. NPR has long been hostile to conservatives and traditional values. The part I object to most strenuously, that I think we should all object to, is that NPR takes public tax money to spread its pro-abortion bias.

Sooo…Blackwell accuses NPR of bias over a matter of semantics (at least abortion rights opponents aren’t supposed to be referred to as “anti-choicers,” which may push more right-wing buttons, as it were, even though that is an entirely accurate description).

Well then, if NPR is supposed to be so hostile to the wingnuts, perhaps he can explain why Mara Liasson, an NPR correspondent, regularly appears on Fix Noise (here), even though, as Think Progress points out, “(while) NPR’s ethics guidelines allow journalists to appear on other media outlets, they clearly state that journalists should not ‘encourage punditry and speculation’.“

Or maybe Blackwell can explain why the supposedly “liberal” Liasson would lie about polling results here, claiming that the Dems were in trouble based on polling Repug-represented voting districts that supposedly voted for Obama, even though, as pointed out in the post, one of those districts in Minnesota represented by Moon Unit Bachmann voted for “Straight Talk” McCain and a certain moose-hunting former governor who quit halfway through her term.

Besides, the last I checked, NPR still provided a paycheck for the odious Matthew Continetti (here), which is all the proof I need to tell me the direction taken recently by that once-fine news organization.

3) Also, it seems that Elliott Abrams, of Iran-Contra infamy, is unhappy with President Obama over the matter of space exploration (here)…

This past week, the current NASA administrator revealed what our current president thinks about space. “When I became the NASA administrator, [Obama] charged me with three things,” NASA head Charles Bolden told al-Jazeera. “One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”

This quote is entirely believable. Mr. Bolden was not told that he must advance American interests in space, but instead to become part of the big Obama program of engagement with the “international community.” His achievements will be measured by whether he can “reach out” to make people “feel good,” and those people aren’t even Americans; no, his “perhaps foremost” job is to make Muslims around the world “feel good” about their past.

(By the way, I know that when Obama’s predecessor took up space in An Oval Office, that I rarely, if at all, referred to him as “President Bush.” Well, let it be known that conservatives are guilty of the same thing when it comes to Obama.)

Part of me honestly doesn’t wish to dignify Abrams’ idiocy here, but part of me also realizes that what he says is too stupid to be ignored.

This tells us (in a story from last April) that the goals in space as outlined by President Obama include a manned expedition to Mars by sometime after 2035; as the story also tells us…

Obama said he will scrap the Constellation moon program, and its Ares rockets, to develop new rockets, propulsion systems and a crew capsule that have yet to be designed. Constellation’s Orion space capsule will be used instead as a lifeboat for the Earth-orbiting space station.

Sometime after 2025, the rockets should be ready to go, and the first target for a landing by astronauts will be an asteroid. The moon will be bypassed, since “we’ve already been there,” Obama said.

By 2035, systems would be in place for journeys to Mars, with orbiting missions around the Red Planet preceding an attempted landing, Obama said.

And when Obama made this announcement, he did so in the company of former astronaut Buzz Aldrin (to deflect criticism from fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, among others).

But I suppose the thought of a president pursuing a goal of a manned mission to Mars is really pretty loopy as far as Abrams is concerned (and what exactly qualifies him to speak as an expert on space anyway?).

Sure it is (i.e., Obama’s predecessor wanted to go to Mars too – insert your snark here).

4) And finally, the following letter appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times today…

I am a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot and spent a year flying combat missions. Because of the constant exposure to the noise of the helicopter, a machine gun firing only feet from my ear, the enemy firing at us at every landing zone and explosions all around me, I lost a great deal of hearing. Of course, as a young man I was too proud to admit it. Now many years later I applied to the Veterans Administration hoping to get help with the cost of hearing aids.

My initial application was in November 2009 and during the ensuing seven months I received two letters from the VA titled “sorry for the delay.” Finally in frustration I called Congressman Murphy’s office. I was treated with utmost courtesy and respect and two days later a VA representative called me with two scheduled appointments for the following week. At those appointments I was finally given a hearing test, they had my military records which clearly showed a hearing loss when I left the service and I was assured that the hearing aids “wouldn’t be a problem.”

I have read many letters to the editor complaining that Congressman Murphy did not represent the interests of his constituents. My experience is the direct opposite: He absolutely represents my interests with actions in addition to words. He will have my vote for as long as the Eighth District is fortunate enough to have such an outstanding representative.

Sandy Kaplan
Lower Makefield, PA

As always, to reward good behavior, click here.

Friday Mashup Part One (6/18/10)

(Note: There may not be much posting for most of next week, maybe towards Thursday and Friday a bit, and definitely no posting on Tuesday.)

1) I couldn’t get through the week without encountering the latest anti-Obama nonsense from former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm here…

America’s favorability rating in Egypt has dropped from 27% to 17% — the lowest figure recorded there in five years. In Turkey, a NATO ally, confidence in Obama has fallen from 33% to 23%. Opposition to key aspects of U.S. foreign policy remains pervasive and many Muslim publics continue to view the U.S as a military threat.

Never mind that, despite the Malcolm headline that “Obama’s ‘hopey, changey’ fading abroad now too” (sic), the “Top of the Ticket” hack tells us that “confidence in Obama remains high in European countries.”

Citing the same Pew study, the New York Times tells us the following (here)…

According to a survey of nearly 25,000 people in 22 countries published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, the popularity of the United States has risen most notably over the past year among respondents in Russia and China. Both countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and are essential to American efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

…

Positive attitudes toward Mr. Obama himself remain overwhelmingly strong among America’s West European allies, according to the survey, with 90 percent of Germans, 87 percent of French and 84 percent of Britons expressing confidence in Mr. Obama to do the right thing in world affairs, compared with 65 percent of Americans surveyed.

…

Among the more surprising results of the survey was the substantial improvement in Russian attitudes toward the United States. Of those surveyed, 57 percent said they had a favorable view of the United States, an increase of 13 percentage points over the previous year. Among Russians who say their country has an enemy, more than one-third, 35 percent, name the United States as its biggest enemy.

Oh, and here is another Malcolm moment, guffawing over Chris Dodd quite rightly laying at least partial blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the feet of the husband of Malcolm’s former employer (the rig wasn’t built when Obama occupied the White House, you shill).

2) And not to be outdone, “Z on TV” himself, David Zurawik, pointed out here that the audience for Obama’s Oval Office address to the country about the Gulf disaster “dip(ped)” to 32 million viewers.

That’s still pretty good when you consider that, as noted here, 37.8 million people watched his swearing-in and inaugural address last year (compared to less than half that for Dubya when he was sworn in in 2005 – what a shame so many people missed out on hearing 43’s pax-Americana flowery fairy tales concocted first and foremost by Bushie acolyte Michael Gerson).

3) That actually is a nice transition to this, which is the WaPo columnist’s piece today on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who seems to be trying to interject some sanity into his party (good luck with that one)…

If there were a WMD attack, death would come to straights and gays, pro-life and pro-choice,” (Daniels) told (Gerson). “If the country goes broke, it would ruin the American dream for everyone. We are in this together. Whatever our honest disagreements on other questions, might we set them aside long enough to do some very difficult things without which we will be a different, lesser country?”

Now before we get all misty-eyed over Daniels, thinking he might be emerging from “the dark side,” let it be known that, were he to occupy An Oval Office as the commander-in-chief, he would bring back the awful “Mexico City Policy,” which banned the use of federal funds for family-planning groups that offered abortions abroad (which, let it be known, reduced the overall funding provided to particular NGOs, closing off their access to USAID-supplied condoms and other forms of contraception, as Wikipedia tells us here).

Gerson also tells us the following…

I was a colleague of Daniels when he was director of the Office of Management and Budget. It was his job to say “no” to splendid policy proposals, which he did with good-humored enthusiasm. Raining on parades was both a profession and a hobby.

Well, Mitchy didn’t do such a hot job of “raining” on the Iraq war “parade” when it mattered; as noted here…

In 2002, Daniels helped discredit a report by Assistant to the President on Economic Policy Lawrence B. Lindsey estimating the cost of the Iraq War at between $100-$200 billion. Daniels called this estimate “very, very high” and stated that the costs would be between $50-$60 billion.[9] As of 2007, the cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has exceeded $400 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office in August 2007 estimated that appropriations would eventually reach $1 trillion or more.[10]

Oh, and one more thing about Daniels – no more lame apologies for supposed “baby boomer” wrongdoing, as he inflicted upon us here, OK?