Thursday Mashup (12/10/09)

1) The Philadelphia Inquirer Op-Ed board wrote the following today (from here)…

One would think political leaders would have learned some lessons in the wake of the scandal surrounding the firings of U.S. attorneys in the George W. Bush administration.

But apparently Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and some of his colleagues didn’t get the memo about restoring confidence in the Justice Department.

Turns out Baucus, 67, nominated his girlfriend to be the U.S. attorney in Montana. Melodee Hanes, 53, a top aide to the senator, was one of three names Baucus submitted for the plum post earlier this year.
Hanes later withdrew her name from the list, and President Obama nominated one of Baucus’ other choices to be the top federal prosecutor in Montana.

I’ll grant you that this doesn’t quite pass the “smell test,” nor does Baucus’ explanation that he submitted Hanes’ name as a Montana federal prosecutor in February, but reconsidered when their relationship “intensified” in March, with Hanes ultimately settling in the Justice Department (and the press played no role in this whatsoever – uh huh).

But, true to fashion, the Inquirer tried to hammer the proverbial square peg into the round hole here by invoking the U.S. Attorneys’ scandal under the previous administration (and how cute is the Inky here only noting cases of Democratic patronage, because, as we know, IOKIYAR).

As nearly as I can tell from the individuals the Inky lists here who benefited from their connections, here’s the difference: these people are all competent professionals (including Brendan Johnson, son of Dem Senator Tim of South Dakota, as noted here). The problem in the attorneys’ scandal wasn’t that the fired attorneys weren’t competent – they were, including David Iglesias – but that, as Max Blumenthal of HuffPo notes here, they were replaced (or, at least, that was the plan, perhaps not completely realized) by Bushco bottom-feeders (graduates of Pat Robertson’s phony-baloney law school, including Monica Goodling at the DOJ who was in charge of staffing) who would have no problem bringing political-only cases to try and discredit Democrats.

When the DOJ under Eric Holder decides to engage in these tactics, let me know. Otherwise, Inky, save your self-righteous indignation for Adam Lambert, Tiger Woods, or this city’s thug/murderer/crooked politician of the week, OK?

2) Not to be outdone, though (and fresh from its dunderheaded decision to allow Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin column space on its Op-Ed page to do her full-mooner global denialist bit – or, as Jon Stewart has said, “Poor Al Gore, undone by the very Internet he invented…oh, the iron-nee!”), Kaplan Test Prep Daily (otherwise known as the WaPo) allowed Kristol Mess to opine on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech today.

And in a startling development for anyone who actually isn’t an ideological quisling and neocon enabler, Kristol believes that what Obama said mirrored a speech by Number 43 in 2002.

Before I say anything, though, I’ll merely present the same excerpts and let you decide.

“proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale….

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

“But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation,…I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.

“So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace….

“But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.”

– President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize speech, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009

Now, here’s former Commander Codpiece…

“Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction….

“North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

“Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom….

“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

“We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction….

“We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

– George W. Bush, State of the Union speech, Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2002

Now I don’t know about you, but I checked out on what Kristol said as soon as Dubya mentioned WMD.

Out of curiosity, though, I decided to do a search on some keywords between the two speeches, and I think this actually shows even more how dissimilar they are (and if a keyword appears under one list but not another, such as “protect,” it’s because I could find it in only one of the speeches…didn’t see the point in listing a 0)…

Obama:

Law (or some variation) – 1
Protect -1
Defend – 1
War – 2
Danger – 1
Threat (or some variation) – 1
Rage – 1
Peace – 2
Al Qaeda – 1

Bush:

Terror (or some variation) – 6
Weapon (or some variation) – 6
Danger – 3
Destruction (or some variation) – 4
Hate (or some variation) – 1
Starve (or some variation) – 1
Freedom – 1
Threat (or some variation) – 3
Al Qaeda – 0
Peace – 1

Yep, as far as Kristol’s wankery is concerned, this is indeed a case of “plus ça change.”

Update: I realized later that I made an exception to the “0″ thing with the al Qaeda reference, but that’s the only one.

3) Also, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm is back to tell us the following (here, speaking of Palin – trying to mention her a time or two before I try honoring my New Years’ Resolution to ignore her)…

Almost nearly not quite one-in-five Americans believes (sic) that President Obama has accomplished enough to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize that he had to go to Norway in December to collect.

At this point, my attitude is “yeah, whatever”; I mean, it’s not as if Obama hasn’t already pointed out that he’s not sure he deserves it either (actually, I think Obama has more of a problem with this, which I thought was uncharacteristically bad form).

But once more, Malcolm uses this as an opportunity to try and get a good word in for “Sister Sarah”…

Meanwhile, the favorability rating of Republican Sarah Palin, an unemployed itinerant author, have climbed back up to 46% from a summertime low of 39%.

I’ll just ignore for now the fact that Palin has absolutely nothing to do with Obama and point out, yet again, that Malcolm is wrong based on this (and “honorary peace prizes” available to all who just ignore him for the wanker he is – just because I take it upon myself to call out this hopeless partisan doesn’t mean anyone else is obligated to also).

4) And finally, over at The Hill, Repug U.S. House Rep Frank Lucas inflicted the following nonsense here…

We like to say that we have the safest, most abundant, most affordable food and fiber supply in the world. But this isn’t just a boastful expression, it is a reality. Our farmers and ranchers are responsible for feeding folks living in our country and throughout the world.

But, cap and tax legislation threatens that safe, abundant and affordable food and fiber supply. The agriculture industry, as we know it, will not survive under the heavy burdens of a cap and tax policy.

Actually, as you read Lucas’ screed, you find that he incorrectly used the proper phrase “cap and trade” three times instead of the Frank Luntz-approved “cap and tax.” Lucas had better be careful, or else he’ll get sent back to “the factory” for reprogramming.

In response, I give you the following (here)…

Lucas’ concern is short term, about decreasing profit for farmers due to increases in the cost of farming and ranching, assuming that farming technology will not respond to the incentive for increased efficiency by becoming more efficient. But he ignores the larger picture. What happens if global warming is allowed to proceed as greenhouse gases skyrocket? What happens to Oklahoma? According to Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science the future will look like this:

With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle.

And Lucas is acting in a particularly brainless fashion when you consider that his state was a big part of the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930s, a phenomenon which, as noted here…

… was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops and other techniques to prevent erosion.

And as noted here…

Opponents complain that the bill would be too costly, raising the prices of energy, fuel and consumer goods. That’s based on the mindless notion that doing nothing to fight climate change would have zero economic cost. Yet if the globe warms as much as climatologists predict, the cost of adapting would dwarf the cost of prevention. A report released last week by the U.S. Global Change Research Program found that, without efforts to stem the problem, average temperatures in the U.S. could rise by 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. The result: large-scale flooding and destruction along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, ruined crops in the Midwest, rampant fires in California, worsening incidence of insect-borne and plant diseases, skyrocketing heat deaths and a host of other woes.

For what it’s worth, I should note that I started blogging around the middle of 2005, and I would guess that I’ve probably posted about a couple of dozen times at least about global warming, including this one. And at this point, despite the many, many, many, many, many times I’ve presented scientific evidence to support what I say, the climate change deniers have, if anything, gathered steam in response to the vast majority of people who understand the scientific basis in fact behind the claim that something should have been done about this years ago and must certainly be done about it now.

And at this point, I don’t feel like being tolerant towards the deniers any more.

Anyone who argues that global warming isn’t occurring is a stone-cold moron. You’d have better luck trying to convince me that gravity doesn’t exist and the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun.

And who cares how much of it is man made (quite a bit, I believe) or not? Why does that somehow reduce the urgency as to whether or not we should act in response?

Monday Mashup Part 1 (11/30/09)

1) I detected a bit of an inconsistency with the following from Republican political strategist Ed Rollins in this CNN editorial…

…Michaele and Tareq Salahi want to be famous as stars of reality television. I am all for that. Give them a reality television series and call it “Trial and Jailtime” in the D.C. criminal justice system. This despicable, desperate, duplicitous couple disgraced the Secret Service and embarrassed the president in his home.

If someone wants to bring charges against these two and investigate how they came face-to-face with the President of the United States the other night at the state dinner for the Indian prime minister and his wife, then I would tend to think that that’s a good idea.

However, it would have been nice if we had heard such outrage from Rollins and his pals when James Guckert (under the alias “Jeff Gannon”) accessed the White House and was admitted to the White House press briefing room on day press passes for almost two years, even though the following was true:

• (Gannon had) no media experience other than a two-day training course at The Leadership Institute’s Broadcast School of Journalism.
• (Gannon) was denied media credentials April 7, 2004, by the “Standing Committee of Correspondents, the press body that oversees the distribution of credentials on Capitol Hill.”
• (Gannon) was not working for a recognized media outlet.
• (Gannon) had access to the White House press briefing room before Talon News (a “psuedo-news” organization tied to a right-wing web site; it was the alleged news site Gannon worked for) was operational.

So to sum up, Rollins thinks that the two gate crashers at the state dinner recently held at the White House should be prosecuted, but neither he nor anyone else in his party thinks Jeff Gannon should pay any price whatsoever, considering that he “somehow bypassed both Secret Service and FBI screening to access the White House press room.”

And Rollins wrote this for CNN.

…

We’ll have to “leave it there.”

2) I felt like I was taking a bit of a trip back in time when I read through this “Politico” rehash of Republican talking points, called “7 ‘Stories’ Obama Doesn’t Want Told” (including the following – I’ll explain in a minute)…

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.

(Oh, by the way, this is “story” number two of seven – insert your snark here.)

So basically, what we have here is a “reboot,” if you will, of the Al Gore “Ozone Man” narrative of the 2000 election (as the punditocracy told us, Gore was intellectual, not a “common man” like George W. Bush, couldn’t decide whether or not he was an “alpha male” and was therefore a liar, etc. – I know I’m leaving some other contrived mythology on Gore, but you get the idea).

And it’s appropriate actually that Harris would mention MoDo here since, perhaps more than anyone else (here), she piled onto the former veep during the campaign over Gore’s “obsessions about global warming and the information highway”; she also compared Gore to the “wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party” for his criticism of the Iraq war; and has repeatedly furthered numerous falsehoods about Gore, such as that Gore once claimed to have “invented the Internet” (guess there was no way to avoid that one) and that author Naomi Wolf advised Gore on his wardrobe.

And by the way, I would not have blamed Dowd or anyone else if what they wrote was legitimate, verifiable criticism instead of corporate media idiocy.

But getting back to Obama, John Harris of Politico takes note of the president’s “peculiar” bow to the Japanese emperor and concludes with the following…

Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness.

Of course, there’s no word on whether or not Harris and his playmates will actually take note of those “good ones” (such as Obama’s speech before Congress on health care and not taking the bait of the oafish Joe “You Lie” Wilson) as opposed to rehashing the bad ones instead for the millionth time.

Update 1 12/1/09: And while The Politico concocts dookey like this, blogger Nathan Newman actually went to work and reported on achievements of the Obama Administration here (of course, too bad that reality conflicts with Harris’s dumb narratives – hat tip to Chris Bowers of Open Left).

Update 2 12/1/09: “Spock this” indeed – ha, ha, ha.

3) And finally, here is more unintentional comedy from “Z on TV”…

A consensus is starting to build that says so far, Barack Obama has been a lot better at playing a president on TV than actually being one in 2009.

Maybe it is the arrival of the holidays and the inescapable realization that our president has seemed to be mostly indifferent to the millions of Americans who are out of work and can’t even start to think of holiday cheer. While the White House has been focused in recent months on such misguided campaigns as trying to beat Fox News into submission for daring to criticize him, more and more Americans are wondering why the president hasn’t heard their growing cries of desperation. That’s what the intensity and outrage of the town halls were really about during the summer. But the tin ears in the administration didn’t hear it. They were too busy booking the president on every talk show on television — as long as it wasn’t on Fox News.

You know, it’s really hilarious to read someone like Zurawik criticize Obama for “playing president” (and any proof on this emerging “consensus,” by the way?) after less than a year in office after we all had to endure the antics of Commander Codpiece since he was installed into An Oval Office in November 2000 (I’ll tell you what, Z – let me know if Obama “drops in” on our troops with a plastic Thanksgiving turkey like 43 did here, and maybe I’ll take you seriously, OK?).

And as far as Obama being “indifferent” to Americans out of work, all I can ask is which party supported the “Stim” and which one didn’t (and which president signed it into law – this tells us that the ARRA “added roughly 2.3 percentage points to real GDP growth in the second quarter “ and created or saved between 660,000 and 1.1 million jobs…and I didn’t recall hearing a plan for a “stimulus” from the Palin/McBush ticket last year).

Also, as far as Obama appearing on every talk show except Fix Noise, is “Z” aware that Obama was interviewed here by Major Garrett on November 19th? And another thing… anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the corporate “Astro-turf” support behind the teabaggers and their faux outrage over the summer is suffering from a serious case of reality avoidance anyway (here).

And finally, how’s this for a “Z” “mea culpa”…

Don’t blame me on this one, folks. I have been saying this since early in the year, and generally catching hell for it even from some of my colleagues.

If you, Z, as a salaried media pundit who writes for a living, don’t even have the fortitude to take some criticism, then stick to writing about TV “reality” shows and Tiger Woods’ vehicle accident instead (or the White House “gate crashers” I noted previously), and leave political criticism for those who do even a bare minimum of research to make their case.

Monday Mashup (10/26/09)

I just have three words for this one: stay classy, Repugs.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik criticized the Obama Administration’s “thin-skinned, heavy-handed minions” here over the mindlessly obvious observation that Fix Noise is the media wing of the Republican Party.

Well, I don’t know how thin-skinned “Z on TV” is, but I have some evidence that he, at the very least, is a bit “heavy-handed” himself…

Here, Z. compares K.O and Rachel Maddow to Nazis (nice).

He said here that Fix Noise was “seriously questioning the administration of President Barack Obama as it pushes an agenda of massive social change not seen since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal” (when does Fix Noise “seriously” do anything, unless it’s Shep Smith going off-script and telling the truth?).

Z. compared K.O. to Joe McCarthy here with no proof (of course).

Here, Zurawik joined the hallelujah chorus deriding Dan Rather’s “disastrous” 2004 report on Dubya’s National Guard service; the criticism of “Z” focused on document minutiae but not the substance of the report describing how, among other pieces of this puzzle, “former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes in his first ever interview (said) that he had pulled strings to get the future president into the National Guard,” as noted by story producer Mary Mapes.

Here, Zurawik said he wants the White House to be “rally(ing) the spirits of the unemployed and the millions of others who fear they will soon lose jobs” instead of criticizing Fix Noise (huh?)

Oh, and “Z” expressed a bit of umbrage here over the fact that MSNBC airs episodes of “Locked Up” over the weekends in between news coverage here (and who else actually cares about that?).

Well then, on further review as they say, if “Z” gets worked into a froth over such a mindless objection (the “Locked Up” business), then maybe he is a bit thin-skinned after all.

Update 10/29/09: God, Zurawik is such a tool (here – h/t Atrios).

I try to avoid Zurawik’s fellow villager pundit Kathleen Parker, but her most recently concocted dreck (here) on the amendment sponsored by Sen. Al Franken in response to the ordeal suffered by KBR contractor Jamie Leigh Jones (pictured) is too odious to ignore…

The amendment, which passed Oct. 6 by a 68 to 30 vote, was intended to prevent the Pentagon from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve disputes over sexual assault and discrimination through arbitration rather than through the courts.

The impetus behind the amendment was the 2005 horror story of (Jones), then a 20-year-old employee of Halliburton/KBR in Iraq, who alleged that she was drugged, gang-raped and held captive for 24 hours in a shipping container without food or water. When Jones sought legal recourse, the defense contractor argued that, under its employment contract, she had to pursue her complaint through arbitration rather than the courts.

So far so good with Parker – but…

No one hearing details of the alleged assault wants to be on the side of those who attacked her — or the company that refused to help her. If you’re a remotely savvy politician, that’s not a battle you want to join.

How about a politician possessing a modicum of basic human decency? What does “savvy” have to do with trying to comprehend Jones’ horrifying ordeal?

One might assume, therefore, that there must be some reasonable explanation for 30 Republican senators taking a position that would invite vilification. It’s true that Halliburton donates seven times more campaign money to Republicans than to Democrats, according to http://CampaignMoney.com. Then again, while we’re crunching numbers, journalists donate disproportionately to Democrats — more than five times as much as they give to the GOP.

The implication that campaign funding for either party had anything whatsoever to do with deciding to do the right thing here is almost too repugnant for words.

And the only fault that Parker can find with the 30 senators who opposed the Franken amendment is that they “haven’t been brilliant in explaining their position” (of course, for these 30 utterly clueless and heartless life forms, they’re lucky I suppose that Parker is here to explain their position for them).

See, according to Parker, the amendment was opposed by the 30 senators, the Department of Defense and the White House because if was “overbroad,” which may or may not be true. However, according to TPM here…

The White House does say it supports “the intent of the amendment,” spokesman Tommy Vietor told TPM.

Vietor also said the White House is working with legislators to rework the amendment “to make sure it is enforceable.”

The Senate legislation, part of a defense appropriations bill, must still be merged with a House bill before it can be signed.

And just as a reminder, here are more details on what Jones endured, which led to the Franken amendment…

Ms Jones was working in Iraq during Iraqi Operation Freedom for KRB when she was brutally sexually assaulted. When she reported the gang rape, she was held imprisoned in a shipping container by two armed KBR guards until she could call the Embassy to reach her father, after which she was rescued.

…

Ms Jones needed reconstructive surgery due to the brutal nature of her attack. Reconstructive surgery! And the assailants claim it was “consensual”. Her breasts were misshapen and torn from the wall of her chest, among other painful injuries she sustained.

Of course, far be it for Parker to include all of this in her screed, a typically “through the looking glass” bit of bogus Beltway blather trying to defend the utterly indefensible.

I think I speak for many when I say that I think Jones is a hero. I cannot comprehend her bravery, and the very least we can do to honor it is to pass the amendment with whatever modifications for enforceability are necessary so that it is signed into law at the earliest possible moment.

Which would thus subvert the obstruction of at least 30 ignorant white men who only want Jones to shut up and go away.

Wednesday Mashup (9/30/09)

So it looks like Repug Florida Governor Charlie Crist, running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Mel Martinez, is trying to play to the base by claiming that President Obama will fall victim to a “Carter-esque loss” in 2012 here (recalling the loss President Carter suffered to Reagan in 1980).

Putting aside Crist’s ridiculous attempt at political prognostication for a moment, I would say that his pronouncement (funny when you consider how Crist smartly supported Obama on the “stim” earlier this year, pictured above) has a lot more to do with this than anything else.

This is how the Republican Party treats anyone showing any impulse for moderation whatsoever. And this is why their only possibility of electoral success lies with Democratic cowardice in the face of positions of popular support, to say nothing of failing to make the case for party causes not enjoying that support (and sadly, either prospect is always a possibility).

Here is some spin from this New York Times article today about President Obama and his supposed communication problem with Afghanistan U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Times reporter Peter Baker…

Questions about Mr. Obama’s relationship with General McChrystal have percolated for weeks, following reports that the administration delayed his troop request and kept him from testifying before Congress. “Someone has to explain what the strategy is,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a military expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “I think it’s important for the American people to hear from the commander.”

And just as a reminder, here is “military expert” Kagan pronouncing that the Iraq civil war is over, recounted in this March 2008 post from Glenn Greenwald, even though Patrick Cockburn of The Independent reported that “a new civil war is threatening to explode in Iraq as American-backed Iraqi government forces fight Shia militiamen for control of Basra and parts of Baghdad” at very nearly the exact same time.

So basically, I don’t think Kagan can speak with any credibility on anything related to matters of war.

But Baker’s piece actually gets more interesting…

Some supporters of the war said Mr. Obama had made a mistake not to consult more directly with his commander.

“I don’t think I can defend him for being out of touch with his commander,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution (in the pic above, O’Hanlon is on the right and Kagan is at the left). “He has other people who advise him. But there’s no one else with the feel on the ground that McChrystal has.”

See how having fewer meetings with McChrystal than Dubya did with his military people running Iraq translates to Obama being “out of touch with his commander,” according to O’Hanlon.

Yep, that’s the same Michael O’Hanlon who (as noted here) advocated for the Iraq “surge” in the pages of the Times despite the fact that seven active duty force members wrote an Op-Ed that also appeared in the Times at about that same time saying that the surge wasn’t working.

As Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones tells us…

What O’Hanlon refuses to recognize is that the surge was designed to slow violence in Iraq only in service of political ends. Going on the offensive against the insurgents is fine, but it’s only an important development if Iraqi politicians seize the opening and make progress towards a reconciled nation and a functioning government. They haven’t done that. They haven’t even come close.

Without political progress, the surge (and the military success O’Hanlon believes it is having) is just another swing in the cycle of war. We’re doing better now, but the insurgents will return with new and different tactics in a few months.

And as Stein also notes, we lost more troops in Iraq during June-July-August of 2007 than at any other same-month period of time during the war, despite O’Hanlon’s surge cheerleading.

On second thought, though, I suppose O’Hanlon is a subject matter expert when it comes to being “out of touch.” I hope that is the only reason why the Times would be interested in his otherwise worthless opinion.

Finally, here is some true Fix Noise comedy on the matter of the ACORN controversy…

The courts should vindicate the First Amendment rights of the reporters and media outlets involved in breaking the ACORN scandal wide open.

…

The intrepid duo of independent reporters James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles (pictured above), working undercover, caught ACORN workers in Baltimore and other locations across the country on tape, talking about these workers’ willingness to help the undercover pair engage in tax fraud, housing fraud, prostitution, and even smuggling in underage girls from abroad to be prostitutes in a brothel that would be obtained with ACORN’s help.

“Intrepid duo” – tee hee hee (here)…

Well anyway, given the legitimate news story about questions surrounding the contracting of Sarah Palin’s house on Lake Lucille and the concurrently contracted Wasilla Sports Complex (here), I think the above description can be edited as follows…

The courts should vindicate the First Amendment rights of the reporters and media outlets involved in breaking the story of alleged favors involving the construction of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s house on a two-acre site along scenic Lake Lucille in Wasilla, assessed at $532,500 (3,500 square feet with four bedrooms and four baths), wide open.

…

The intrepid duo of independent reporters Wayne Barrett of The Village Voice and Huffington Post blogger Shannyn Moore reported that Palin steered contracts for the 2003 construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex before leaving office as Wasilla mayor the previous fall, in return for work building her home about the same time.

And Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin and her team of barracudas can huff and puff all they want, but the last time I checked, the truth was always a sound defense regarding a question of libel.

And the only ones who are alleged to have broken any laws here are “journalists” O’Keefe and Giles, as noted here.

A Question For Our Corporate Media

If a Democratic presidential administration had launched two wars that it had not been able to manage to a resolution of some sort that approximated victory (including one that was totally unnecessary and based on lies); if a Democratic presidential administration were responsible for the worst record of job creation over its eight years that this country has ever seen; if a Democratic presidential administration had abrogated international treaties and conducted renditions and surveillance (to say nothing of destroying evidence in the process); if a Democratic presidential administration had tripped over itself in the clumsiest way imaginable while a hurricane destroyed a large swath of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (here); if a Democratic presidential administration had joked about missing WMD (with those weapons that had been destroyed ostensibly used as a reason for its unnecessary war); if a Democratic presidential administration had systematically politicized and gutted the functions of the government agencies under its purview (here, here, and here for starters)….well, if all of this and much more had taken place over the eight years of a Democratic presidential administration, would the chief counselor/architect/propagandist of that administration end up as an invited guest to the Sunday morning talk shows, and other outlets for “Villager” pontifications (and kudos to Katrina Vanden Heuvel here, by the way – of course, Rove wouldn’t be Rove unless he had a typically deceitful response at the ready)?

I didn’t think so.

Snarlin’ Arlen’s ’90s Retro Rehash

It seems that our Senator from Pennsylvania is intent on dragging out the confirmation hearing of Attorney General Designate Eric Holder well into the spring, based on this New York Times story today, which tells us that…

Mr. Specter raised questions about Mr. Holder’s role as deputy attorney general on a range of issues that included an investigation into the 1993 federal siege in Waco, Tex., that left David Koresh and about 80 of his Branch Davidian followers dead, and an espionage investigation involving a nuclear scientist, Wen Ho Lee.

But he saved his sharpest criticism for Mr. Holder’s role as deputy attorney general in three controversies in Mr. Clinton’s second term: Mr. Clinton’s pardon of (fugitive financier Marc) Rich in 2001, the president’s decision in 1999 to grant clemency to 16 members of a Puerto Rican militant nationalist group, and the Justice Department’s rejection in 1997 of an independent counsel to examine accusations of campaign finance abuse by Vice President Al Gore and the White House. In each case, Mr. Specter said, Mr. Holder appeared to go against the advice of career professionals at the Justice Department.

Geez, Arlen, you mean you’re NOT going to try and find a way to blame Holder for returning Elian Gonzalez to Cuba also? You’re slipping!

And after this is concluded, I’m sure Specter also will press for hearings into the “real” death of Kurt Cobain, as well as the “murder” of Vince Foster.

To say that all of this is pointless is an understatement; the only one of these “controversies” that I care remotely about is the Rich fiasco, which I posted about here.

And I’ll be curious to see exactly how far Specter goes with his little inquisition on Holder; as Bob Geiger notes here, Our Man Arlen did a lot of yapping about former Bushco AG Abu Gonzales, but didn’t do a whole hell of a lot to try and persuade the Repug Senate “leadership” at the time that Gonzales should go (and Chris Durang of HuffPo notes here that Specter didn’t even put Gonzales under oath when he testified; let’s see if he tries that little trick when Holder visits “the Hill”).

Also in the matter of Specter on a separate issue (FISA), we have a clip from Jack Cafferty here which states in fairly blunt language how our senator buckled on the surveillance issue the same way he did on Gonzales.

Finally, I’d like to remind Specter and the Repugs that, in 2001 when the Dems were the minority party, they chose not to filibuster the confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General even though the Repugs didn’t have the now-traditional “60 votes needed for passage” (here). Though I don’t expect the Repugs to return the favor on Holder if he gets less than 60 now that they’re the minority party, I just thought I’d remind them anyway.

I sincerely hope Chris Matthews is paying attention to all this (still can’t quite get used to him as the party standard bearer against Specter, but there you are).

Update 1: Looks like Grassley wants to play with Arlen too on the Holder nomination based on this (and kudos to Leahy for using Ass-Croft to slap them down).

Update 2: Also looks like Matthews is out (oh noes!!! – I think; hmmm…).

Update 3 1/8/09: What BarbinMD sez here…

Update 4 1/12/09: More of Arlen’s particular brand of hypocrisy here (h/t Atrios)

I Wish We Could “Trade” Asscroft

(I couldn’t get to this earlier due to technical difficulties…sorry.)

I’ll try to check back with the “Get Off My Lawn Variety Hour – The Sequel” (loved that one) soon between “Straight Talk” McBush and Barack Obama (look for “noun, verb + William Ayers Jeremiah Wright ACORN John Lewis Jesse Jackson Michael Pfleger etc. etc. etc” all over the place – and of course, McBush has really been trying hard to rein in the crazies at his little revivalist show of bigots on parade campaign rallies, as we know).

But since this is finally, MERCIFULLY the last debate (I know this election REALLY WILL END one of these days, but let’s keep working to make sure it all ends up being worth it), the New York Times today asked a panel of “experts” here what they would ask tonight (some legitimately know what they’re talking about I believe, but others don’t, IMHO).

And of course, I’m focusing on someone in the latter category, and that would be pre-Gonzo Dubya AG John (“Lost An Election To A Dead Guy”) Asscroft. And here is his question…

Colombia has worked to eliminate terrorist activity and drug production within its borders, yet it has seen its efforts rewarded by having prominent members of the House and Senate lobby against a free trade agreement with us. What message does this send to other countries, like Afghanistan or Pakistan, that are working at our behest to eliminate security threats to both our nation and theirs?

To begin, as Jonathan Tasini of HuffPo notes here, the Columbia Free Trade Agreement would…

… at the very least, push thousands of farmers off their lands. And, as likely, empower the paramilitary death squads that have flourished, in part through the U.S. financing of the “war on drugs, but also via the strengthening of the powerful business interests who fund some of the most violent political forces in Colombia.

And given the current abysmal state of Afghanistan, somehow I don’t think free trade is currently ranking very high on its agenda (unless you count the drug trade, which of course is a whole other story). And since we’re giving so much damn money to Pakistan to fight the “war on Terra! Terra! Terra!,” why should they care about becoming a trading partner?

O, to be governed by adults again (96 days and counting, people)…

But if all else fails, at least we could hang out with him and other neocons on a cruise (h/t Atrios); huh?

Update 10/17/08: More on the Columbia deal here…

John W. McBush Tries To Roll A “Hard Eight”

Still making my way through this extensive New York Times story yesterday about our favorite maverick and his ties to the casino industry; truly eye-opening, my friends.

More Like This, Indeed

Hat tip to Avedon Carol at Eschaton for this (consider me at this point a “groupie,” if you will, in the Marcy Kaptur Fan Club).

And “lockbox,” huh? When was the last time we heard about that anyway?

Oh, I remember now; it was from that supposedly duplicitous Al Gore (at least, that’s what our dear media cousins wanted us to believe in 2000, along with the fiction that Dubya was somehow “a regular guy,” remember?).

More On “Money Matters Tuesday”

Returning to the New York Times, this story in the business section tells us how Sweden managed to recover from their financial turmoil in the prior decade that bears a striking resemblance to what we currently face (that is, “after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom… its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent,” according to the story).

But in response…

Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.

That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.

“If I go into a bank,” Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s finance minister at the time, told The Times, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”

…

Sweden told its banks to write down their losses promptly before coming to the state for recapitalization. Facing its own problem later in the decade, Japan made the mistake of dragging this process out, delaying a solution for years.

Then came the imperative to bleed shareholders first. Mr. Lundgren recalls a conversation with Peter Wallenberg, at the time chairman of SEB, Sweden’s largest bank. Mr. Wallenberg, the scion of the country’s most famous family and steward of large chunks of its economy, heard that there would be no sacred cows.

The Wallenbergs turned around and arranged a recapitalization on their own, obviating the need for a bailout. SEB turned a profit the following year, 1993.

“For every krona we put into the bank, we wanted the same influence,” Mr. Lundgren told The Times. “That ensured that we did not have to go into certain banks at all.”

By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again.

I hope at least some (or, dare I imagine – all?) of these ideas are being discussed within Congress, though, given the fact that moonbats such as this gentleman are given credence on this matter, I hope you’ll forgive me for my cynicism.

And in other indebtedness news, a full-page ad in the Times today reminded us that the U.S. currently owes the U.N. approximately $1.2 billion (actually, it’s closer to $1.3), though this Wikipedia article tells us that the so-called Helms-Biden legislation of 1999 (now there’s a combination!) was able to reduce our payments to the U.N. and related agencies based on negotiated reforms.

It should be noted that, of the $1.3 billion, according to the article, “$612 million is payable under Helms-Biden. The remaining $700 million result from various legislative and policy withholdings; at present, there are no plans to pay these amounts.”

Meanwhile, we canceled Iraq’s $4.1 billion debt here, even though, as noted here, that country now has a surplus of $79 billion.

O to be governed by adults again (118 days and counting, people).

(And by the way, what Bowers sez here – h/t Atrios.)

Update: In a related vein, here’s “some straight talk you can believe in, my friends”; ka-chiiing! (and please don’t try to argue that Obama’s $126K of contributions from the employees is somehow worse).