Ha. Ha. *click* *BLAM*

From this week's Idiot files:

Hi-jinks were the order of the day at a recent Bush event in Fargo, ND, when Karl Rove grabbed the microphone of CNN's John King and proceeded to do a little "reporting" of his own. "The president is making an incredible presentation to the audience here in Fargo, North Dakota," said Rove. "The crowd has received an overwhelming - his reform message of Social Security. The crowd broke into a strong applause when the president attacked the mainstream media..." King interrupted, "It's not bad. I'd keep your day job, but that's not bad." Not bad? How dare you, Mr. King! "I'd say more than not bad," gushed Judy Woodruff, back in the studio. "I think we're ready to hire Karl Rove right now. We'll start - we'll make the phone call right after the show." You know, I don't know what's worse... the idea that Karl Rove's spin is so similar to CNN's regular reporting that Judy Woodruff can't tell the difference, or Woodruff assuming CNN can employ someone they already work for.

I'm so appalled at broadcast news any more that I barely watch it.

My first corporate career was in the newspaper business. Ten years ago, I subscribed to the daily paper, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and a dozen others periodicals on an occasional basis.

Today? Nothing.

I had access to a dozen more dead-tree versions of dailies around the country, as well as the WSJ and the Nation's McPaper. I also subcsribed to Editor&Publisher, the bible of the industry, and wondered why the denizens of the onion-topped towers I occasionally bumped into took so lightly the things I read in its pages that alarmed the hell out of me.

Well, they're still there, raising their ad rates 6% every year and cutting their editorial staff a couple of people, managing their publications at a 20 or 30% profit margin and meeting once a year at a resort location to congratulate themselves on what a fine job they are doing.

I moved on. Of my own volition.

I get my news online these days. And I don't give up my personal information to invasive-registration sites. I have my browser shields up so high and so thick that there are blank spaces with "AD" in them all over the page. Little bubble noises go off frequently, signifying another pop-up window has been blocked.

This blogging thing is just more evidence that the old media is just about over. And the sooner we all help them figure it out, the better we all will be.

Can we now begin the healing?

Or least get back to the usual meaningless and tired partisan rancor our Lege is renowned for?

Harvey Kronberg says it's over (or is that Vo-ver?) for Talmadge Heflin:

Acting as a Special Master in the HD19 election challenge, State Rep. Will Hartnett's report to be issued this morning will conclude that Hubert Vo won his election by at least sixteen votes. Any remaining disputed votes are insufficient to overturn the election.

In a statement this morning, Vo said,"I appreciate the careful and thorough job my colleague Mr. Hartnett has done under intense pressure and in difficult circumstances. He refused to be distracted by sidebar issues and kept his focus on making sure the will of the voters is upheld.

"I am confident that my colleagues on the special committee and in the full House will live up to the standard Mr. Hartnett has set in honoring both the spirit and the essence of our democratic process."

Thank you, Representative Hartnett, and please stay off of small airplanes for awhile...

I shouldn't have let this get by

As heard on Air America last week:

"Today is Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address.

"An ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of low intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

Last of the Vaqueros

When I was kid, I was a Cowboys fan. Those were the days of Roger Staubach and Bob Lilly and Drew Pearson, whom we'd impersonate at halftime when we went outside to re-enact our version of that Sunday's blowout of some hapless opponent. As I grew older, I drifted away from the 'Pokes as a favorite, mostly because I tend to root for the underdog in nearly all things.

So the Cowboys of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin weren't so popular with me. Oh, I rooted for them, but as with most dynasties I wasn't rabid about it.

With much respect I note the retirement today of Emmitt Smith, and in this article I am reminded why I admired him, much more so than his teammates named above:

But despite his impressive statistics, he won just two major awards in 15 seasons -- NFL MVP in 1993 and the Super Bowl MVP that same season, when he rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns in the Cowboys' 30-13 win over Buffalo in Atlanta.

He won those despite missing the first two games of that season in a contract dispute with Jones. Smith finished that regular season with perhaps his greatest game, an overtime win over the New York Giants at the Meadowlands.

The Cowboys and Giants were both 11-4. The winner got the NFC East title, home-field advantage in the playoffs and a first-round bye. The loser got a wild-card game the following week.

Smith separated his shoulder in the third quarter but returned to the game, which went into overtime tied at 13. He carried the ball on nine of the Cowboys' 11 plays in the extra period at one point raising his aching shoulder to stiff-arm Lawrence Taylor on his final run, which set up Eddie Murray's game-winning field goal.

He finished with 229 total yards and a touchdown on 32 carries and 10 receptions, the heaviest workload in team history, then spent the night in a hospital.

Had the Cowboys lost that game, Smith probably wouldn't have been able to play the following week in a wild-card game. That would have made the road much more difficult in what turned out to be the Cowboys' second of three Super Bowl victories in four seasons.

Few men set a better example on the field or off as the kind of player anyone, friend or foe, could admire. If Emmitt Smith's post-NFL career is as successful as his playing days, then he should go into the Human Being Hall of Fame as well.

Sy is getting to be such a downer

Seymour Hersh tells us just how bad it's going to get:

For me, it's just another story, but out of this comes a core of -- you know, we all deal in “macro” in Washington. On the macro, we're hopeless. We're nowhere. The press is nowhere. The congress is nowhere. The military is nowhere. Every four-star General I know is saying, “Who is going to tell them we have no clothes?” Nobody is going to do it. Everybody is afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's just the way it is. It's a system built on fear. It's not lack of integrity, it's more profound than that. Because there is individual integrity. It's a system that's completely been taken over -- by cultists. Anyway, what's going to happen, I think, as the casualties mount and these stories get around, and the mothers see the cost and the fathers see the cost, as the kids come home. And the wounded ones come back, and there's wards that you will never hear about. That's wards -- you know about the terrible catastrophic injuries, but you don't know about the vegetables. There's ward after ward of vegetables because the brain injuries are so enormous. As you maybe read last week, there was a new study in one of the medical journals that the number of survivors are greater with catastrophic injuries because of their better medical treatment and the better armor they have. So you get more extreme injuries to extremities. We're going to learn more and I think you're going to see, it's going to -- it's -- I'm trying to be optimistic. We're going to see a bottom swelling from inside the ranks. You're beginning to see it. What happened with the soldiers asking those questions, you may see more of that. I'm not suggesting we're going to have mutinies, but I'm going to suggest you're going to see more dissatisfaction being expressed. Maybe that will do it. Another salvation may be the economy. It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick. And the third thing is Europe -- Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. I'm talking about our old-fashioned allies. We could see something there, collective action against us. Certainly, nobody -- it's going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit -- our -- we're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here. But he could get through that. That will be another year, and the damage he’s going to do between then and now is enormous. We’re going to have some very bad months ahead.

I need a drink. (Tonight is the weekly "Drinking Liberally" meeting -- click on the icon at the top. You're invited.)

*shakes head*

The NYT used the word 'bold' in their online headline this morning describing Bush's agenda, as revealed in last night's SOTU.

I'm so tired of that.

This guy wouldn't know bold if it kicked him in the balls.

Is this a new idea? Or simply a 'repackaged brand'?

I wish this was linked by the person who posted it here; it's sourced to the Inter Press News Service Agency. Note the date of the article; it's nearly a year old at least (which is perhaps why I could not find it at their site). It makes a point that I haven't heard much, but is beginning to be sounded out by those on the right :

Iraq under Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the United States but it did to Israel, which is one reason why Washington invaded the Arab country, according to a speech made by a member of a top-level White House intelligence group.

WASHINGTON, Mar 29 (IPS) - IPS uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 -- the 9/11 commission -- in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Zelikow's casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of President George W. Bush and his administration, which has never overtly drawn the link between its war on the regime of former president Hussein and its concern for Israel's security.

*snip*

”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.

”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow.

That post prompted this one (from one of that forum's staunchest conservatives, misspellings and inappropriate capitalizations included):

As a group, ignorance, hate and bigotry have no more blatant an exemplar than anti-semitism. Its a very sad - and idiotic - thing to transfer responsibility for one's own inadequacies and failings to the imagined nefarious deeds of an ethinicity. At root, The War On Terror is a war against anti-semitism, and will continue untill that despicable plague is excised from the human experience.

Asked for elaboration, the same fellow posted this:

It ain't our freedom that infuriates the militants, its our support for Israel that drives their antagonism toward us. To the mind of bin Laden and ilk, Israel stands only with US support; their intention is to cause the US sufficient inconvenience as to bring about a cessation of US support for Israel. While it will take time - a generation or two or three perhaps - having embarked on the endeavor, the militants have set in motion the machinery of their own doom. The expansion of democracy throughout the region is the single greatest threat to the aims of the militants, occasioning great desperation on their part. They - the militants - have fatally underestimated the resolve and fortitude of The US and her people, and draw false comfort from the partisan wranglin' brought on through the ridiculously misguided and thoroughly counter-productive efforts of The Democratic Party to reverse the decline it has brought on itself.

Breathtaking, isn't it?

So the first questions that come up for me are:

-- Does this mean George Bush was lying (again) when he said, "They hate us for our freedom"?

-- Or does it mean he's just dumb (again)?

Since I generally avoid exposing myself to ultra-right propaganda, I'm guessing this must be GOP Talking Point #57 (look, a Kerry reference!) in their ongoing attempt to find a rationalization justifying a war now nearly two years old. Like all the others, this one has probably been test-marketed in the right-wing blogosphere and served up through their media organs --the ones on the dole as well as the ones who aren't -- and is now being parroted by the poor saps at the bottom of the conservative food chain.

That ongoing ridiculousness aside, however, I have always gathered from what bin Laden has said that the religious fundamentalists on their end of the Holy Spectrum were incensed not so much by the nebulous tenets of 'democracy' and 'freedom' but by the general malicious influence (not to mention ubiquitous presence) of Americans and American culture on their world.

And it seems to me to be a very effective strategy thus far that Osama and his band of merry men have executed -- to gradually bleed the Great Satan white by fomenting insurgency in as many hot spots as possible.

That's what was done in Vietnam, after all, and in Afghanistan to the Soviet Union as well. Took a decade, both times.

(And I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that radical Muslims dream the same dream that radical Christians do: the vanquishing of all other religions to the exaltation of their own. I'm pretty sure without looking it up that Osama has expressed a bit of irritation at the Jewish state.)

I think all that has the ancillary purpose of weakening Israel, but I doubt that was their primary goal. The US has done much more to offend the Muslims in the past ten years than Israel has. And I think that's why we were attacked. By a crew of mostly Saudi zealots.

They could have flown planes into the Knesset, after all.

And in case no one's noticed, the Palestinians have a new leader who strongly advocates conciliation.

So by this rediscovered conservative logic, my question is:

Will the war on terror subsequently come to an end if the Palestinians and the Israelis declare peace on each other?

The sheople need to be made nervous again, apparently

Did Tom "Duct Tape" Ridge just blab himself out of a Presidential Medal of Freedom? Oh well, he's probably still in line for that seven-figure consultancy with Carlyle:

Departing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Friday he believed another attack on the United States was inevitable, and warned that America should not focus just on al Qaeda, but also on similar groups that could carry out attacks.

"I have accepted the inevitability of another attack or attacks," Ridge said in an interview on the eve of his departure from the department launched two years ago to guard against another attack like that of Sept. 11, 2001.

"It could be al Qaeda or it could be al Qaeda-like organizations," said Ridge, who departs on Feb. 1. "I do think, when we talk about global terrorism, (it is) better ... that America doesn't focus just on al Qaeda."

"There are a lot of al Qaeda-like organizations and there are quite a few (Osama) bin Laden wannabes out there -- you've got one of them operating in Iraq right now," he said, referring to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

First of all, I thought we were only to be attacked if John Kerry was elected.

Secondly, I would like to know what steps Ridge has taken to protect his own family in the face of this inevitability, especially since he has been privy to the most sensitive national security intelligence. Does the Ridge household have sufficient plastic sheeting for the windows, doors, and fireplace? How about a five-tier, color-coded terror alert warning system electronic light bar in the kitchen? Is there breathing apparati readily available -- meaning upstairs and down -- for all family members? A helipad out back for rapid evac?

This isn't quite as dumb as Tommy Thompson giving our enemies suggestions on what to attack next, but it is in keeping wih the Bush administration's desire to keep the sheople scared.

Do you think it's working?

No on Gonzales

Let's be clear: His tortured legalese resulting in the atrocities at Abu Ghraib ought to be reason enough for the Senate to reject the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

But now comes word that he pulled strings for then-Governor Bush at a voir dire so that Bush could avoid disclosing his own DUI conviction -- and has subsequently prevaricated about it, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I am reminded of attorney Tom Hagen's line in the opening scene of "The Godfather", where he explained to the movie mogul: "I have a very special practice. I represent one client."

Throughout his career as consigliere to Dubya, the task of Al Gonzales -- indeed his mission -- has been to find, or absent that, invent the justification for whatever it is that needed doing. Questionable or not, shady or not, legal or not. You can almost hear Bush saying "Git it done, Al," spoken with his trademark smirk, through the years.

Can't have the Guvna answer no questions about drinkin' and drivin'? Call in a chit wit' the judge. Got a death row inmate that needs killin'? Gloss over the fact that the condemned man's lawyer fell asleep during his trial. Need to make some camel jockeys -- errr, terrists -- spill their guts? Hell, that Geneva Convention's not only sixty years old, it's for pussies.

Conservatives get apoplectic when the Bush administration is called thugs, gangsters, or God forbid, a multinational corporation. When they do, we should simply open a page from any one of the law books in Alberto Gonzales' library. They all say the same thing.

"Git it done, Al."

To vote to confirm this man as attorney general goes against seemingly every concept of freedom, liberty, and democracy mouthed by the President last Thursday and espoused in the Constitution. Not that that sort of thing matters much.

The Senate should reject this nominee.

Sorry, been sick

And more than a little beesy.

Will now get right back to reporting.

Remember when Bush first came into office, he made a lot of the fact that he was the first president with an MBA, and who had no previous experience with the way things are done in Washington? I distinctly remember one of his weekly addresses, given sometime between January 20 and September 11 2001, where he announced that he would use his business skills to make government more efficient and more responsive.

Problem is, if you think of government as a business and the president as its CEO, you will also see things like, oh, international law as just another annoying impediment to your freedom to make decisions -- much like a CEO may think of the tax code and all those other tedious regulations they have to deal with, like worker safety and environmental protections. You won't think of governing as a solemn obligation; that you have a duty to uphold, and that maybe you should occasionally exceed its literal requirements to create goodwill. Instead, you will tell the government's legal experts that they are now the equivalent of corporate lawyers, that it is now their job to probe for loopholes in the law, and then exploit them as best they can.

Strange as it seems, there are some things that traditional Washington insiders do right, and maverick MBAs don't get. More generally, you don't necessarily improve government by pretending it's a business.

Zero, zip, nada, f*ck all

So today we read that, apart from the centrifuge buried in someone's backyard for a decade, no WMDs have been discovered in Iraq, and BushCo is finally admitting it.

Since 51% of Americans voted for Bush despite coming to this realization long before the election, it should be obvious to "everybody" that "nobody" (that would be 100% of everybody -- or 100% of nobody if you wish to use the prevailing conservative logic) cares.

On this same rationale you will see a federal budget that freezes or slashes spending on every single government program except defense and homeland security. Not even COLAs will happen, meaning that spending won't keep up with inflation.

You will see the administration attempt to ram through judicial nominees that were previously turned down by changing Senate rules that have been in place since the Founders' signatures on the Constitution were still wet.

And you'll see the majority party continue to whine, bitch, and cry about how the minority is "obstructing" them.

They will do -- or attempt to do, based on how hard the Democrats choose to fight back -- all of this in the name of that 51% "mandate" they claim.

Audacity just simply does not begin to describe it.