What’s the Difference?

by shep

I wrote the following comment on a right-wing crap-catapulting blog (you know the one) in response to the idea that: 1) no one should be shocked by the tone of the current Democratic presidential nomination campaign (tragically correct) and 2) that all’s fair in war and politics, including attacking Hillary Clinton (mind you, this blogger is a woman) for her gender:

You’re right about the venom in this campaign relative to historical politics – and wrong about just about everything else. This may come a huge shock to you but some political attacks are true and relevant (rational people call them criticisms) and others are not. For example, Hillary Clinton’s female gender may be true but it isn’t relevant. Likewise, what the pastor at Obama’s church said. John Kerry’s windsurfing and “Frenchness”: not relevant. John Kerry’s military record: relevant but completely untrue as rendered by the Swiftvets. What John Hagee, Pat Robertson and other evangenlical nutjobs have said: true but not relevant. John McCain's pandering flip-flop on "agents of intolerance": true and relevant.

I understand that this stuff is way over your head but the important point is that this is not a fucking party game. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed and millions more have had their lives destroyed by American soldiers because of Al Gore’s brown suit and lies about what he said about Love Story and the Internet. Irrelevant and untrue crap catapulted by people who don’t care about the difference for consumption by people who are too stupid to know the difference (you know where you fit in here) has brought this country – the world for that matter – to the brink of catastrophe.

If your point is that mindless partisans are always going to create this sort of corrupt politics and the tragic consequences they may lead to, then: 1) the only responsible reaction for lucid, humane people is to call their bullshit immediately and in no uncertain terms and 2) you are constantly on the wrong side of that particular fence. You’ve made a blog around it.

The reason I’m posting this comment here is that, when I reread it later, I realized something quite sickening: I could easily have been addressing it to practically every major media outlet and gasbag in our entire decrepit Fourth Estate. Take out the word “blog” in the last sentence and replace it with the word “career” and it would work just as well for people like Tim Russert and Chris Mathews. Put in the words “news network” and it applies just as well to CNN or MSNBC. Replace it with “News Program” and it describes FOX News.

You get the ugly, inescapable picture: not only is our mainstream political dialogue gripped by people who refuse to or cannot distinguish between what is true and relevant or irrelevant and false but those people and media are indistinguishable (at least in that regard) from the right-wing propaganda machine. Explains quite a bit, doesn’t it? And none of it very good for our politics or our world.

Update: The reprehensible Chris Matthews spends a significant amount of two segments discussing Barrack Obama’s not-macho enough for Chris bowling form, not what Obama is saying in his campaign or the policies he is proposing as a presidential candidate, and finishes his moronic analysis by basically calling Obama a nappy-headed ho. What a horror show.

[E Pluribus Unum]

DEEP (Cat) THOUGHT

Your cat thinks you are very strange indeed. In fact, it's quite possible your cat does nothing but think up ways to kill you between feedings.

Cheetahs attack woman at cat sanctuary.

More specifically, your cat feels neglected and that you should pay more attention to it than your blog habit or those kid who it hates too.

Your cat has delusions of grandeur.

Your cat thinks the pedestal you put it on needs a pillow.

Your cat has rat breath.

Your cat has even worse breath.

My dogs on the other hand, alert me if a cat or a sticky fingered child tries to sneak up on me when I'm writing.

There Is Deluded, And Then There's Dean

Consider these perspectives and tell me the guy isn't still mainlining Jagermeister.

Karl Rove, one of the smartest men in politics, ...

The situation in Iraq with troublemaker Muqtada al Sadr is wrapping up with fascist forces in full blown defeat and panic mode.

Sadr Surrenders ...

... the Hillary I generally see: a surprisingly smart policy wonk and a genuinely charming and funny person.

And this was just one day in the Alternate universe inhabited by the self-professed neo-con and unabashed Bush apologist Dean Esmay.

Amazing that this guy can't find a job when he would have fit in so well with the liars, spinners and kool aide drinkers in the current administration.

[Anyone else feel kinda creepy about a fat, drunken, nobody of a blogger from Michigan professing his mom-love for Senator Clinton?]

The Surge Has Failed

Don't argue with me. Deal with it. It was always a dumb idea.

I think I can safely conclude that the political reconciliation the "Surge's" relatively lowered level of violence was supposed to facilitate has hit a rather significant, uhhm ... catastrophuck.

The attempt of parliament to meet and take up the issue of the battle with the Mahdi Army failed when the federal legislature could not muster a quorum. The session then turned into a mere discussion session. Al-Hayat, writing in Arabic, says that one reason that parliament could not get a quorum was that the Kurdistan Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite) support al-Maliki and boycotted the session.

For those who are paying attention, note that the phrases "sectarian violence" or "ethnic violence" are no longer operable since this is purely a Shia on Shia conflict. The Sunni don't seem to have a dog in this hunt and the Kurds have their own problems since, as Cernig points out, Turkey is far from done making mischief in the North.

Far be it from me to throw a wet blanket on the well deserved flames Fred Kagan is getting for pronouncing The Civil War in Iraq is over -- a war the neocons never wanted to admit existed (kinda like not admitting we're in a recession until the recovery starts). However, a civil war implies two different sides, at the most maybe three. We've got at least six separate entities lobbing bombs at each other -- almost all of whom have no qualms about putting our troops in the crossfire (or deliberately in the cross-hairs). This is armed chaos, gangland style anarchy.

Some very big brains are still making the same old arguments why we should get out against the same old arguments why we should stay. I think one look at the current situation tells the story in a brand new light. It doesn't matter if we stay or go.

If we left Iraq today, the Kurds would still be taunting the Turks and getting bombed for their troubles. The battle between the Badr Corps and Mahdi Army would continue just as today but without Teh Awesum aerial bombardments we supply. The Sunni "Crips" would probably make nice with the al Queada in Iraq "Bloods" since their raison d'entre, our occupation, would dissolve their venom for everything and anything, leaving Sheiks and Thugs looking to weigh in with the Shia faction that makes them the best offer. And just as they are now, Iran would be covering all bets, backing everyone so the eventual winner will feel all warm and fuzzy towards Teheran.

Explain to me how this would have played out worse if we weren't there? That fact that we implicitly have Maliki's back surely emboldened him to go into Basra with an obviously inadequate force while we bottled up Sadr City and provided air support in the south. The only real utility I see for our presence in the current conflict is Iran is quoting Rodney King ("Can't we all just get along") and supplying arms to the Sadrists (and everybody else for that matter) instead of making a move themselves.

Maybe embolden is the wrong word, since to me it's inconceivable that this operation wasn't green-lighted in Washington. It smells of arrogant incompetence -- a specialty of the Bush Administration. Anything that can keep us there for any reason but the real one, control of that mountain of oil, is good enough for loyal Bushies everywhere -- cuz we ain't going nowhere.

Professor Cole Explains The Battle of Basra

Now that you know who the players are, and have a pretty good idea that the current cluster-fuque is something that smells suspiciously Cheneyesque, Juan Cole confirms that your tin-foil hat is receiving on the correct frequency.

My reading is that the US faced a dilemma in Iraq. It needed to have new provincial elections in an attempt to mollify the Sunni Arabs, especially in Sunni-majority provinces like Diyala, which has nevertheless been ruled by the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. But if they have provincial elections, their chief ally, the Islamic Supreme Council, might well lose southern provinces to the Sadr Movement. In turn, the Sadrists are demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, whereas ISCI wants US troops to remain. So the setting of October, 2008, as the date for provincial elections provoked this crisis. I think Cheney probably told ISCI and Prime Minister al-Maliki that the way to fix this problem and forestall the Sadrists [c]oming to power in Iraq, was to destroy the Mahdi Army, the Sadrists' paramilitary. Without that coercive power, the Sadrists might not remain so important, is probably their thinking. I believe them to be wrong, and suspect that if the elections are fair, the Sadrists will sweep to power and may even get a sympathy vote. It is admittedly a big 'if.'

Silly me. I was thinking that Maliki would take a political beating for unleashing the Army on his own people. Indeed, I overthunk things, believing Maliki would look even worse for appearing too weak to handle the job without being rescued by the Americans who will undoubtedly act in our usual heavy-handed way and destroy the city in order to save it.

Seriously, if they can rig Florida and Ohio, no amount of purple die will ensure fair elections in Iraq.

Maliki says, according to reports translated by Professor Cole, that he doesn't care about political parties, but won't tolerate armed gangs (like the Mahdi Army) roaming the streets. Some of those gangs are none too happy with their Prime Minister:

In Baghdad, al-Hayat says, thousands of protesters came out to rally against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, demanding that he resign and threatening him with a trial worse than that of Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad is essentially locked down until Sunday and the US Embassy is under mortar fire. Good Times. Great Surge.

Here's the take that should make you spit coffee all over your monitor, so swallow now.

A member of Iyad Allawi's National Iraqi List, which has 22 seats in parliament, said it was necessary to stop the activities of lawless gunmen. But Izzat al-Shahbandar warned that if the campaign went on very long, it could derail the political process in Iraq.

As if the political process was just going swimmingly before.

Brad DeLong offers as good an explanation why we are backing the same folks Iran likes in the inter-shiite struggle -- they speak English. Of course, that doesn't explain why Cheney backs President Bush, since he doesn't speak English all that well either.

But don't fret Boys and Girls. Your PrezNitWit has everything under control, you see, all of this "is a sign normalcy is returning back to Iraq," cuz after all, Iraq "got their budget passed." This dangerous man obviously lacks the basic awareness of a third grader.

We just keep on spreadin' that democracy stuff like fertilizer on desert sand. Meanwhile, as we ready our big guns, Sadr asked for peace talks and was rebuffed by Maliki and protesters loyal to Sadr demonstrated peacefully. It's quite apparent that despite NPR stating matter of factly "There is no doubt that this operation needed to happen" it didn't have to go down this way. Unfortunately for all concerned, the Cheney/Maliki coalition can't win a fair political contest and are forcing the issue.

• On Monday, a fairly light day in the post surge conflict, only 17 Iraqis were killed, 26 wounded and two dead US contractors were identified. This was the day after we reached 4,000 dead US troops.
• Tuesday deaths were up 200% at 54 with 129 wounded, plus one GI. Gen. Petreaus blamed Iran.
• Wednesday, even more Iraqis were killed, 76, wounded more than doubled from the day before at 367, and 2 GI's and a British soldier were killed. We blamed Iran some more.
• Yesterday, things really got hairy with 225 dead Iraqis, 538 wounded, 1 GI and three of our contractors killed. Pentagon insists it's all Iran's fault.

I don't know about you, but I'm sensing a very scary pattern here. We started air-strikes in earnest today.

Look, with even a goodly number of Democrats believing that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and even good progressive bloggers finding themselves comfortable using Karl Rove as a primary source of political insight, it won't take much to convince a substantial number of Americans (enough to stave off immediate impeachment, anyway) that we had no choice but expand the current theater of operations across the Shat al-Arab right into Iran -- for the maneuvering room if not in hot pursuit of "Terrorists."

This is going to go from awful to extremely fucked up in a hurry.

Pop Quiz: Why Are We In Iraq Again?

Thanks to Kevin Drum, we now have a handy cheat sheet so we know who's shooting whom in the latest version of Teh Awesumest War Evar™. (Thanx Digby)

And you didn't think there was going to be a test.

Of course, if you read Kevin Hayden's Post, even knowing the teams doesn't matter much when folks take off their uniforms and change teams as soon as the game starts.

“We already heard two weeks ago that we were going to attack the Mahdi Army, so we were ready,” he [Abu Iman, former member of the Iraqi Special Police] said. “I decided to take off my uniform and join my brothers and friends in the Mahdi Army. All these years, we were like a scream in the face of the dictator and the occupation.” He said: “I joined the police because I believed we have to protect Basra and save it with our own hands. You can see we were the first fighters to take on Sadd-am and his regime, the best example being the Shabaniya uprising.”

Why does this all smack of the surreal to me? I just get the feeling that the Iraqi government forces, and ultimately the Maliki Government itself are being set up to fail, and fail badly.

There's just no way the Cheney administration will tolerate an Iran friendly Shia regime to take hold in Iraq. Maliki has been too cozy with Teheran, but he gets along with everybody, including us. Sadr hates everybody, especially us.

The two of them duking it out damages both, frankly; but especially the government and Iraqi Army who don't look to have the force projection capability or loyalty in the ranks to accomplish this particular mission: taking over Basra. Maliki is doomed here to face the humiliating choice of a major defeat militarily or the other humiliation of being forced to call in the calvary -- us -- to inflict substantial damage to the Mahdi Army.

I'm quite confident nobody has thought through the end game here. Why should they start now?

UPDATE: Looks like the choice has already been made. Or maybe this was the plan right along.

Americans Appear To Take the Lead As Iraqi Units Wait — U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day.

Of course, that's Baghdad. The Battle of Basra is what where somebody's dreams of power and glory will end.

Great White Snark

by shep

John Rogers sends the privileged, white (and somehow still incredibly pissed-off) Barrack haters to school on their fear and loathing of the angry black man:

Attention, Fellow White People:

…If Senator Obama becomes President, we will still run everything.

Everything.

Immediately following his Wright Snark, Rogers explains a lot of anger (except for the inexplicable right-wing kind that always somehow misses the mark):

-- Paying $3 trillion dollars for a war started by rich old white people.

-- Sending your kids off to fight in a war being run very poorly by rich old white people.

-- Allowing many of those kids to die thanks to crappy equipment provided by companies owned by rich old white people.

-- Watching media controlled exclusively by a small number of rich old white people.

-- Consuming tainted medicine or bad meat because government regulatory agencies have been gutted by rich old white people.

-- Getting boned on your pension by investment firms run by rich old white people.

-- Watching your house lose value because of financial screw-ups by rich old white people.

-- Losing said house because your kid's cancer treatments aren't covered by insurance companies run by rich old white people.

-- Losing your job because your company's been moved to Belize by rich old white people.

-- Watching government records being blatantly destroyed by rich old white people.

-- Cheering while the Constitution is used to wipe the ass of several rich old white people.

-- etc.

Rest assured, Management has its priorities in place. We will remain vigilant against the words and actions of radical old black preachers in neighborhood churches.

Just the man you want for color commentary as righty, whitey heads explode at the thought of a black man as President.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

NSA Alternate Universe Alert

The following is a rushed transcript of conversation between Richard Mellon Scaife and Hillary Clinton that the NSA intercepted in a warrantless wiretapping operation authorized under standard language found in all National Security Act signing statements and Vice Presidential Ratfucking Directive 38, both copies of which can be found in the man-sized safe at the Naval Observatory.

Senator Hillary Rodam Clinton: So, Richard, can I call you Richard?

Richard Mellon Scaife: Call me Dick

Clinton: Dick?

Scaife: I'm just Dick. Dick to my friends.

Clinton: So, we're going to be friends ... Dick?

Scaife: We have a mutual enemy. Can't let that black asshole get in the White House.

Clinton: Oh? Well, yeah ... I guess. But thought you'd be backing McCa...

Scaife: Fuck that asshole.

Clinton: Huh?

Scaife: Hillary, look. Your husband's a piece of shit so I went after him with everything I had, but I never wanted to hurt you. You were always nice to me.

Clinton: But Dick, I...

Scaife: No, listen. I gave Nixon a million bucks, funded that damn dirty tricks squad your Watergate Committee exposed[*]. I gave to Reagan and Bush One, and was treated like I have the clap. But you. I nearly destroyed your husband and you still were gracious enough to invite me to the White House when you were still living there.[*]

That was nice. I want to return the favor. I want to make things right before I meet my maker.

Clinton: Well thank you, Dick. I just...

Scaife: So we're going to put you in the White House again.

Clinton: Great Dick, I'm thrilled to have your support. Your paper carries a lot of weight here in Pennsylvania.

Scaife: Phhft. This primary don't matter. You've already lost the nomination Hillary, face facts.

Clinton: Well ... but ... a win here ... and the superdelega...

Scaife: Oh fuck that Hillary. You're toast. I'm talking about the Vice Presidency after I connect that goody-two-shoes "Ace" McCain with a few more bimbo lobbyists.

Clinton: But I'm running for president. I'm not going to play second fiddle to Barack. He's young. He'll have another shot. It's my turn.

Scaife: And it will be. You'll be a heart beat away. And should something happen, God forbid...

Clinton: Something happen? What are you talking about?

Scaife: You know. Something happen. God forbid something happen to the new black president. God forbid of course.

Clinton: Mr. Scaife, your talking ...

Scaife: Hey, we're all grown-ups here. You took care of that lawyer friend of yours.

Clinton: I never did anything to Vince Foster. That was all in your head! He was a great friend. That was your fantasy you sick bastard!

Scaife: Yeah, you did real good on that. Got cleared and everything. So I figure if you could get away with offing him, you could get away with pretty much anything -- and this time I'll give you cover instead of blowing millions trying to take you down. And then we'll be even.

Clinton: This meeting is over. You're sick. [Senator Clinton gets up to leave.]

Scaife: Does this mean I won't be invited to the Lincoln Bedroom?

Clinton: [Walks to door] Goodbye Mr. Scaife. I'm going to pretend this meeting never happened.

Scaife: [Yelling] Fine! You'll regret this you ugly cunt! Why don't you get that daughter of yours teeth fixed, ya bitch. You'll regret this. [*]

Shia Hitting The Fan, Again

Firedoglake has the news that can't make it though the media's "Hillary didn't duck and Obama has a wacky preacher" filter.

More from the Left Coaster. We're back to a real war. Basra's on fire, Sadr City is surrounded and the Mahdi Army's unilateral cease-fire is over with militias getting marching orders to target US troops again.

My guess it that we are about to start talking about another failed attempt to turn the corner in Iraq, and Cheney will have to find another scapegoat to hang with the incompetence mantle. And that's fine by me. We should be talking about how to end the real war, and not the one between Democrats.

How About A Juvenile Take On Race

So for the nine thousandth time I'm watching one of my favorite movies, finding it far better fair than anything else offered by the cable company I pay for the privilege of boring me to death.

The movie is the Mel Brooks classic, Blazing Saddles. I used to own an original theater poster from this movie, one of the first efforts in American cinema to treat race openly and honestly. I just love that movie.

And unless you rent the DVD, catch it on a premium cable network like HBO or Cinemax, or attend a midnight film fest screening, you'll never, ever get the full impact. Not until we as a nation grow up.

Lately, AMC has been playing it, deservedly so since it is undoubtedly a classic. But they cut it, bleep it, just plain screw it up.

As most such things, you know exactly what they are muting -- in this case it's usually a racial slur that simply has become unacceptable although it's ubiquitous throughout the film. The "N" word. They also cut a couple of sexual references, and the word "faggot."

What's interesting is that back in the day they cut it in different places. The TV censors found different things objectionable in the late 70's than they do today.

I remember specifically when it came to television, around the time the original Saturday Night Live gave America the Blues Brothers, Mel Brooks satire of life in the old west was "edited for television."

And what did they take out in the 70's? The fart joke.

The twenty or so casual uses of the word "nigger" were left intact back then, as was Dom Deluise commanding a male review at the end to, "Watch me, Faggots." I don't remember if they redubbed Madeline Kahn being called a "Teutonic Twat" by Harvey Corman to "Teutonic Twit" or not. In The Producers the Marlene Dietrich character is a "Twit" but AMC mutes the word in Blazing Saddles.

But they don't cut the fart joke anymore.

There was a time when farting around the campfire was so offensive it simply had to go, even though it was THE joke that gave the movie it's name. It was the never mentioned but so well understood reality that riding on a horse all day with nothing to eat but beans would lead to gastronomical effusions of legendary proportions. It was never hinted at in any western, ever. After Blazing Saddles, watching John Wayne movies was just never quite the same.

According to the Wiki, two years ago, the Library of Congress selected Blazing Saddles for preservation -- most likely because it is the first instance of a major Hollywood studio using a fart joke.

It was the funniest joke in the movie, and when I saw it for the first time (on TV) my dad who had seen it at the theater had to explain the joke to me. He was just laughing away at the campfire scene and I had no clue why, because they weren't doing anything and all the fart noises were cut.

That completely ruined the movie.

The word "nigger" is liberally used in Blazing Saddles, vulgarly so. Indeed the epithet is an essential ingredient in several jokes as well as an integral plot device. Clevon Little is edited nowadays on AMC when he uses it. It's not even broadcast, but basic cable for Pete's sake. He's even muted when referring to himself as he takes himself hostage. But back when I was a teenager, there was no doubt what he was saying because they left it intact.

In the 1970's farting was too much for TV, but calling someone a "nigger" was just fine. So was "faggot" for that matter.

I have to admit bleeping the word "nigger" doesn't hurt the movie for me at all, but I know the thing by heart. It just reminds me that we live in different times now. We still know what they're saying. I probably would only put two instances of it back in, merely for comic effect if I were bickering with the censors. When the sweet old lady looks at Sheriff Bart and says, "Screw you, nigger," and then cuts to the Sheriff's horrified reaction later, repeating it -- that would go back in.

It's a plot point, hardly as gratuitous as most of the other instances. But my teenager had to have her dad explain the joke even though it was quite obvious in most other situations exactly what was being said. The jokes just aren't as funny when you have to explain them.

But this wasn't even a joke. It was two full scenes where the insult was central. In fact, that was the pay off of an entire tableau of character development scenes where racial attitudes build to a turning point when the Sheriff faces the hard cold fact that he may never win these people over. It makes the contrast all the more poignant when the town is forced to ask him to rescue them and eventually he gets a sincere, but funny apology.

The incongruity of an elderly lady spitting out an unexpected insult resulting in devastating disillusionment for the Sheriff -- which his sidekick tells him he should have expected -- is not a simple one-liner but a commentary that goes to the heart of the essential conflict of the movie. Overcoming racial prejudice, to go from zero to hero is the journey of Sheriff Bart. The little old lady's attitude illustrates just what low esteem a black man moving into a position of power in a white community would be held, and must overcome.

I remember what it was like when they cut the fart joke. Without the fart joke they might as well have kept the original title, Black Bart -- the once aired pilot by that name is included in with the 30th anniversary version of the uncut movie.

That one joke, the fart joke made the irony of the title work. Likewise, that one instance where a gruff but otherwise endearing elderly woman could spit out such a vile sentiment makes the plot work because her coming around later, along with the whole town learning to respect and admire someone they treated with such despicable contempt is the whole point of the movie.

Not hearing the word doesn't make the casual prejudice represented by the word go away. It's there, it's real. Just as real today as it was in 1974 ... or 1874.

Maybe by the time my teenager has a teenager of her own, she won't have to explain the parts they cut out of this movie to her kid. Maybe. Four generations later and maybe we'll have grown as a society enough to have someone watch it without it being explained to them because we just can't have our sensitive ears assaulted with with the way things are, and the way things used to be.

Maybe by then we'll be able to deal with the fact that some people used to call other people such offensive names with a callous indifference to how badly it would make them feel, just like today we can finally deal with the fact that people fart -- and farting is funny.

UPDATE: Dave Dugan from zencomix makes the observation that the timing of seeing this movie on the air so much lately seems suspect.

There’s no coincidence. If it were Edwards instead of Obama fighting for the nomination, we’d be seeing The Candidate instead. “Blazing Saddles Obama” gives you 34,300 entries.

There’s a new sheriff in town.

Jim Henley Is Smarter (or at least as smart as) You

Someone who got Iraq Right!

I could tell the difference between the government and the country. People who couldn’t make this distinction could not rationally cope with the idea that American foreign policy was the largest driver of anti-American terrorism because it sounded to them too much like “The American people deserve to be victims of terrorism.” I could see the self-interest of the officials pushing for war - how war would benefit their political party, their department within the government, enhance their own status at the expense of rivals. Libertarianism made it clear how absurd the idealistic case was. Supposedly, wise, firm and just American guidance would usher Iraq into a new era of liberalism and comity. But none of that was going to work unless real American officials embedded in American political institutions were unusually selfless and astute, with a lofty and omniscient devotion to Iraqi welfare. And, you know, they weren’t going to be that.

(H.T. Ezra)

Actually, buried deep in this delicious piece is the real reason we went to war ... "And many feared that if the United States did not go to war, it might make some hippie, somewhere, happy."

That line alone is worth the trip.

More Truth In Journamalism

Truth is Truth, no matter how bitter a pill it is to swallow.

What matters is that the media is now giving itself permission to write the Clintons' epitaph. There is no way for the Clintons to stop the momentum of this narrative once it catches on in the press. Once Tim Russert starts quoting Halperin and Dowd, then everyone will start echoing the new common wisdom. It was too long in coming, but it's too long to the Pennsylvania primary for the Clintons to maintain the fiction that they have a chance.

Now, one of the strongest articles of faith in the business is that the Clintons will never give up and they will do anything to win, even if it hands John McCain the White House on a silver platter. But even the Clintons need the support of a certain baseline percentage of the political establishment. There is no way that Hillary will be president or vice-president, but she might be able to negotiate something of value. Some people have suggested that she could be made Majority Leader of the Senate. I think that's a long shot, mainly because of logistics (how do you get 50-plus senators to agree in advance?). Others have suggested a seat on the Supreme Court. That would be possible if the Democrats pick up a few seats in the Senate (and maybe even without it). And it would be a priceless spectacle to watch the right-wing howl in agony as she took her place on the court.

Hillary on SCOTUS? I'll be dancing in the streets that day.

Realistically, no matter how loud the bitching from certain quarters, support for a nominee doesn't come from a convention vote, but from a general consensus of the people at large. Too enough in our Crossfire style of news reporting the media fails in it's responsibility to rally us around what it best for us all -- as opposed to what the likes of Dick Cheney thinks we should be thinking.

What's best for all of us Democrats is to end the family feud and build a movement that will eliminate the very idea that conservative governance has any place in America anymore. It's a lot more likely that happens when Hillary admits she can't win a fair fight, and won't happen at all if she keeps scorching the earth.

Hillary, I love you, always have. Can you settle for 25 years on the Supreme Court in exchange for 4 or maybe 8 years dicking around with the White House press corp and fighting Congress every damn day?

Good girl.

Is Our Journalists Learning?

If So, Halleluja.

Maybe it's the season for epiphanies, or maybe it's just the trendy thing to do. But in the wake of Friday's episode of Fox and Friends anchor Brian Kilmeade walking off the set and Chris Wallace calling the other two stooges out on their nonsense masquerading as news coverage that I noted yesterday, there's been a rash of maturity (or at least attempts at grown up behavior) throughout the Village.

Court TV's Catherine Crier fired a salvo at HuffPost

We are in one of the most critical presidential races in our lifetimes. The issues are monumental; a collapsing economy, the never-ending war in Iraq, global climate change. Yet we watch as the networks loop Rev. Wright sound bites (with not a single one offering up the easily accessed sermons in long form so viewers can form a reasoned opinion about the man and his agenda), or maybe they debate the phrase 'a typical white person' ad nauseam. I have no problem challenging Barack Obama on his association with the minister, but as with most stories, a few phrases from Wright's career do nothing to inform people about the man or his mission. It is the duty of the media to offer the big picture on this (and so many other stories) so viewers can make a reasoned decision, but unless I've missed it, no news organization has tried. The purveyors of news must bravely offer information that may challenge the audience despite the backlash from time to time.

The press knows how influential it is in shaping attitudes and opinions. However, the mind-numbing drivel most of us subject ourselves to serves only to polarize and solidify preconceived positions; so much so, that when actual facts slip into discussion, they are dismissed as mere partisan ammunition. There are exceptions to this rule, but that equation should be reversed.

Also at Huffington Post read the interview with veteran WaPost reporter Walter Pincus, who never forgot what it really meant to be a journalist. He suggests not only what the media is doing wrong and what it could do right, but also what they could not do that would make them less wrong.

While seeking to "be neutral, unbiased and objective, presenting both or all sides as if they were on the sidelines refereeing a game," the print and electronic media have relegated themselves to the role of "common carriers, transmitters of other people's ideas and thoughts, irrespective of import, relevance and at times even accuracy," Pincus contends.

At this stage, Pincus suggests, a relatively simple courageous act for the media would be to stop printing non-news:

"A new element of courage in journalism would be for editors and reporters to decide not to cover the president's statements when he or she--or any public figure--repeats essentially what he or she has said before. Journalistic courage should also include the decision not to publish in a newspaper or carry on a television or radio news show any statements made by government officials that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public."

No doubt if there was less of this vapid he-said/she-said business the blogosphere would be a far less interesting place since so much of what it does would be taken care of by the people paid to wear suits and tell us what is happening, what is truth and who's trying to sandbag us folks staring at our monitors in our PJ's. It certainly would make places like Media Matters, Fact Check and Crooks and Liars less essential, and reading Bob Somersby what you do when looking for interesting bar-b-que recipes.

Somerby's recipe for journalistic malpractice this week included a critique of BrianRoss, ABC’s top “investigative reporter” who stunned us all with the "astounding" news this week that Hillary was in the White House the day Bill stained Monica's dress.

Mainstream press conduct of the past sixteen years raises a fundamental question: What kind of creatures are we really? As of (let’s say) 1992, who could have imagined that grown men and women would stoop to the nasty, sheet-sniffing, thigh-rubbing inanity found in Ross’ “report?” We’ve long told you this: Washington’s modern mainstream press corps displays an utterly broken-souled culture. Have you thought that was a bit hyperbolic? If so, read Ross’ “report.”

No wonder The Editors are hibernating until primary season is over.

But there is a glimmer of hope. As Blogenfreude documents, over at Slate the meme of the day is "How Did I Get Iraq Wrong" by six "liberal" Bush Apologists. Of course, John Cole's up front, no-excuses, " I was wrong about ... everything. Every Damn Thing," article is really the only way to go on this subject -- unless you're a former weapon's inspector and can say without a shred of guilt: "You were all wrong, I was right. Why the hell didn't you listen."

Why I Make Fun Of Florida and Michigan

Other than that whole angry rat thingy being the MSU mascot, and Mickey Mouse being Florida's state rodent ... those guys are election screw-up amateurs.

When it comes to sinister electioneering and just plain political rat-fucking, nobody holds a candle to the crap my former Secretary of State, Kenny Blackwell, was up to here in Ohio. Some of which only now is coming to light two years after he was thrown out of office -- four years after he arranged for Diebold to steal the election for George Bush.

Ohio's voting machines are now an official crime scene

At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio's 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony "Homeland Security Alert" used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush's 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny.

Fortunately we have a crack squad of newly empowered Democrats on the case who found evidence of fraud through the exhaustive process of ... trying to vote.

The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio's new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words "candidate withdrawn" in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez's name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine.

Ahah! Zee Game, she is a foot!

Ironically, Brunner requested a paper ballot in the March 4, 2008, primary, but a poorly trained poll worker gave her a provisional ballot instead. Two other staffers from her office were also given the wrong ballots. Brunner has since pledged to upgrade the training for Buckeye State poll workers.

Brunner further announced that she's banning the practice of so-called "sleepovers" where poll workers take the programmable and easily hackable voting machines home with them overnight prior to an election day.

Sleep F#$%#ing Overs!?!?!?!?!? What the bleeding hell.......

Cheese and Rice! @#$%@#%# Sleepovers!~!!~!!! ?????

Is this some kinda joke? This ain't prom queen we're voting for here.

Go read the whole sad saga at FreePress that tracks how our new Secretary of State Brunner and Attorney General Marc Dann have been fighting an uphill battle with entrenched machines (both mechanical and human) to just simply count our votes ... and yes, it even mentions the Limbaugh effect which added to Hillary Clinton's victory in the Buckeye State causing a shortage of democratic ballots.

And yes, Virginia, there might be a pony in it for you after all, now that there's an official investigation of fraudulent GOP cross-over voters.

Tell you what my Florida friends: if and when you finally manage to throw the GOP out of Tallahassee, buy a lot of garbage bags -- because I suspect that things have been going on much longer and much worse than here, so you've got a lot of trash to clean up.

As for Michigan, see you guys in November. (Not the election silly, at the Horseshoe on Game Day two weeks later -- losers.)

[Hat Tip: Avedon, who for some reason knows more about what's going on in my back yard than I do, even though she's way across the sea.]

I Hope They Can Clean This Up In Translation

Holden's obsessive tracking of the witlessness of our illustrious C-Plus Augustus is legendary. But today's episode of an interview conducted for Voice of America's Persian News Network was absolutely incomprehensible.

But there is a better way forward. And I thought, for example, the Russians proposed an interesting way, that says -- and I have said publicly, and the Iranian people need to know that I believe Iran has the right to have civilian nuclear power.

I mean, really ...huh?

I can't imagine how that goes over in Farsi. The real fun though is trying to figure out what country he's talking about.

Well, part of the problem is that it's very hard for people to trust the Iranian government because they haven't told the full truth, and that's why the people of Iran have got to understand there are great suspicions right now, not only in the United States, but around the world.

It that a universal thing, or just a problem in Iran? Could you elaborate Mr. President?

In other words, I -- once a nation hasn't told the truth, it requires a lot of work to convince people that they'll be telling the truth in the future.

Ah. I get it now. That's why Preznitin' is such hard work.

Oh, you mean there's more?

And any time a government is failing to meet the needs of people -- or a lot of times, not "any time," but a lot of times governments have failed to meet the needs of their people, particularly in relatively non-transparent, non-free societies they always look for somebody to blame.

Okay, I'm losing this in translation again.

Does this mean that only countries that aren't the U.S. of By God "A" look for someone to blame when the Guv'mnt fuck's over the people. In the words of our Vice President, "So."

Not Your "Typical" Fox News Punditry

Chris Wallace takes the Morning Zoo Crew at Faux Noise to task for two hours of unfair Obama Bashing, and gets some love from Daily Kos in the process.

Nice to see there's at least one adult on that network.

d-Kos Front Pager, Scout Finch has posted the clip of Wallace debating the Fox and Friends anchors and calling them out for being the numbskulls they are.

(Since I'm a YouTube Luddite, here's a link to the clip if the embedded video fails.)

Keith Olbermann reported that after the juvenile antics continued, one of the anchors got up and left the studio -- and the two left kept it up (to their producer's delight). Worst person's indeed.

Shorter Glenn Greenwald

Patient: Doctor, Doctor! It hurts when I invade and occupy middle eastern nations under false pretenses.

Doctor: Then don't do that.

Much to the dismay of the very serious people who thought very seriously and very hard about going to war with Iraq, and concluded in a very serious way that a very hard war with Iraq was a good idea -- people who knew Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were nutz but went along anyway despite knowing we would not be greeted as liberators, we would not be done in 6 days, 6 weeks or 6 months (that 666 thing should have been a clue), and that we would not be paying less than $50 billion for a war that Iraqi oil revenues would cover -- we do not have to listen to these very serious people, any more, at all.

We can consult other voices, and in fact it would be madness not to get a second opinion from very serious people who did not screw things already.

Yes Senator "Ace" McCain, that means you. Sorry Hillary, until you can just flat out admit you really fucked up beyond reason, that probably means you too.

I think that really leaves one choice, and Bill Richardson finally figured that out by endorsing Obama.

We didn't have these choices last time around. I kinda went with the notion that if you supported John Kerry, you already gave Hillary a pass on the war. But once Dean screamed his way out of Iowa last time around, there really weren't any true anti-war choices left. Now it's different.

To expand on Greenwald's analogy: If you go to consult with a doctor to fix what another doctor screwed up, you don't go to the guy who was doing shots of Jagger with your surgeon before the operation, or the nice lady doctor who handed him the scalpel even though she knew he was drunk. You go to that bright young doctor, fresh from finishing his internship who was screaming to the others not to let that quack cut you open in the first place -- don't you?

…When First We Practice to Deceive

by shep

No matter what, John McCain’s multiple lies about Al Qaeda in Iran are certainly more proof that John McCain is unfit to serve as Commander in Chief.

dday lays out the case: “Whether McCain is confused, believes what he wants to believe, or is actually deviously conflating various enemies to create a sense of the "Other" is immaterial.”

But there is one more possibility that no one has suggested: McCain simply couldn’t keep his lies straight.

It is well-established law enforcement technique to do multiple interviews with a suspect because, when they are lying, gross inconsistencies tend to appear in their story. It can be as basic as the name of a place or person that changes as the perp tells the story again.

So McCain’s intentional lie, that “extremists” were being trained in Iran and sent into Iraq got confused with the usual lie that ”al Qaeda” is the actor in [insert ugly scenario that al Qaeda may or may not have perpetrated here].

So it is quite plausible that McCain just can’t keep his lies straight. He tells a lot of them, he’s not extremely bright and, you may have heard, he’s getting old.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Don't Just Complain

Intensely Complain:

There should be a lot of loud complaining about the fact that McCain has assiduously courted public endorsements from major public America-haters. There should be intense complaining that the media first questioned Obama's claim to be Christian on no reasonable evidence, although they've always senselessly accepted Bush's unbelievable claim that Jesus is his favorite philosopher, despite ceaseless evidence to the contrary. We should treat this as an opportunity for progressives, not just part of the jockeying for the nomination.

The essential, Avedon Carol.

Bonus Quote from her Sideshow: "Someone asked what those 29% who still approve of Bush are thinking, and Watertiger responded, 'They're not'."

Double Bonus Observation from Bill in Portland Maine:

Democrat Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign for hiring prostitutes because he seemed to be such an upstanding public figure. Senator David Vitter, on the other hand, wasn't forced to resign for hiring prostitutes because, well, that's what America has come to expect from Republicans.

And while I'm in a linkable mood, Kate Harding at Shakes Place notes that the Zombie Village Press Corpse was reminded of the non-story Vince Foster was not put to death by Queen Hillary, and that reminded them to remind you that there was lots of stuff the Village thought Hillary might have done without the slightest evidence, (Oh!, And that Bill Clinton did some nasty stuff in a bathroom) and now we have more evidence that there was no evidence that is now Breaking News of more non-news that the voters have not been sufficiently reminded of -- so what's she hiding?!?!?.

Simple minds want to know.

[Yes, I know this was a somewhat eclectic post, covering topics as diverse as Obama's religion and Bill Clinton's indiscretions. But you see, there is some madness to this method. I'm just not a Jedi of the irrational conflation like Jonah ... yet, and remain a hopeless liberal fascist.]

29 Down and Counting

Via Political Wire:

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) "has scheduled a noon press conference on Thursday, and GOP insiders say the veteran lawmaker is going to announce his retirement from Congress, effective at the end of this year," The Politico reports.

Last Republican to leave, please turn out the lights in your caucus room. We won't be leaving a light on.

Manchurian Press Corpse

Glenn Greenwald documents the zombie-like mantra that has hypnotized most of the Village.

John McCain is a Serious, Knowledgeable Foreign Policy Expert -- and an honorable, truth-telling gentleman ...

... who won't change a thing, cuz change is scary.

Updated with a linky thingy ;-) And some more if you're inclined.

Depends on What the Meaning of the Word “Journalist” is.

by shep

The partisan use of the word “bi-partisan” never ends:

“A Senate version of the bill, negotiated with the White House, includes retroactive immunity for telecoms. It passed by a bipartisan vote of 68 to 29 on Feb. 12.”

“The House bill proposes an alternative fix for telecom companies facing big lawsuits: to allow a judge to determine whether the executive branch's claim of the state secrets privilege is legitimate. It passed by a partisan vote of 213 to 197, with all Republicans and 12 Democrats voting in opposition.”

So when all Republicans and some Democrats vote for FISA with all of the president’s fondest wishes, it is “bi-partisan.” But when all Republicans and some Democrats vote against FISA without everything the president wants, it is “partisan.” Got it."

What, oh what, would our ever-serious and professional watchdog journalists do without the White House press release?

[E Pluribus Unum]

Dumbest Thing You Will Read Today

That is, unless you haven't read about Dick Cheney declaring how Iraq is just Teh Awesum!

Lieberman explains support for McCain — STAMFORD — U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn, told the editorial board of The Advocate and Greenwich Time he's supporting Republican John McCain for president because he's the most likely to bring about change in Washington.

Sorry about all that coffee you just sprayed all over your keyboard. But you should have seen that coming

(Thanks Memorandum, for starting my day off with a chuckle.)

Excuse me?!

by shep

Mainstream Republicans can spew all kinds of toxic shit about liberals committing treason, Democrats appeasing terrorists, all of them hating America, Islam is a religion of violence, evolution is only a theory, global warming a) doesn’t exist, b) isn’t a problem, or c) isn’t man’s problem but this, said by the pastor of Obama’s church is somehow unacceptable?:

“That’s when Wright blamed the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.”

“Young African-American men” were “dying for nothing.” The “illegal war,” he shouted, was “based on Bush’s lies” and is being “fought for oil money.”

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. ... God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.”

I’m not sure what’s even arguable about those statements. They obviously make white people (deservedly) uncomfortable but they are the words of an African-American preacher to a (mostly) African-American congregation who understand firsthand the unquestionable truth of that rhetoric.

Barack Obama’s politic mistake wasn’t attending that church or listening to Pastor Wright. Think for moment of all of the abominable shit we sit and listen too, much of it called entertainment, and we pay money to hear it. Obama hasn’t saddled up to evangelical icons who say, homosexually goes with Satanism or can ”kill you spiritually” He didn’t go to a bookstore and buy a book that says, “liberals are always against America,” or that puts a Hitler mustache on a smiley face under the title “Liberal Fascism” and includes the quote, "The white male is the Jew of Liberal Fascism".

Obama should be asking the hypocritical gasbags in the Village Press whether George Bush and John McCain should be to made to repudiate all of their supporter’s hateful and bat-shit crazy rhetoric or are they applying a double-standard to him. Instead, he repudiated Rev. Wright and his sentiments. That was his political mistake:

”Obama seems to have seen, early in his career, the utility of joining a prominent church that would help him establish political roots in the community in which he lives. Now he sees the utility of distancing himself from that church.”
--Bill Kristol

That is point of this entire exercise, to make the Democrat look like the one thing no Democrat can afford to appear: weak and afraid. When Democrats learn not to be cowed by the outrageously hypocritical and disgusting right-wing smear machine, they will be able to beat Republicanism and the conservative movement thinking back to the dank caves of the lizard-brained where they belong. Until then, here’s one more example of how it’s done:

“I didn’t hear Reverend Wright’s words firsthand but he expresses the upset at the way many African-Americans have been treated which is shared by many people, both black and white. I don’t think that white Christians or Jews shouldn’t be able to listen to their clergy express similar feelings about how those people may have suffered in the past. I understand that Reverend John Hagee has said some scurrilous things about Catholics, Muslims and gay people, does that mean that John McCain shouldn’t be able to stand with Reverend Hagee and say that he was proud to have his endorsement?”

End of sermon. You can wake up now.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

China Crackdown Leaves 30 Dead, Conservatives Confused

Scotsman reports 30 people killed as Chinese locked down the Tibetan "capital after the largest and most violent protests against its rule in the region in nearly two decades."

This despite a warning from the U.S. not to use force on the protesters. Wizbang notes the situation with typical disdain that China is the last great bastion of communism on Earth, and provides this context for the conflict:

The violence erupted just two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

I leave aside the argument that being one of our largest trading partners and most consequential creditors softens Bejing's image as the Red Menace because they do remain despotic as always even though they left Marx's path long ago. Let's go right to the predictable, yet sadly impotent international condemnation as the unrest spreads beyond borders of Tibet.

"Arrogant ..." guilty of the "greatest humanitarian disaster" of the modern world ... "accompanied by a deliberate ignoring of serious human rights problems on its own territory."

No, that's not what we said in condemnation of China's human rights records, but what they said about us.

This was not only inconsistent with universally recognised norms of international relations, but also exposed the double standards and downright hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, and inevitably impaired its international image."

See, since we invaded Iraq without just cause, are responsible for killing civilians in Afghanstan, keep secret prisons and torture detainees, the Chinese feel that, "The United States has a notorious record of trampling on the sovereignty of and violating human rights in other countries."

It's called moral authority. We got none anymore. We used to, not all that long ago actually. We used to be able to get on our high horse and spout the kind of vitriol Bush Cheerleader Mark Noonan spews with no sense of irony.

I’m sick to death with these tyrannical regimes which presume to have the authority to actually do what they do. We can’t get rid of them all, but we can certainly cut our ties to them. I’m for completely free trade, but only with other free nations - we should ditch all trade agreements with China, and open trade agreements with, say, India. It is time for the free people of the world to firmly and without question stand athwart the unfree nations - and stand with their enslaved populations.

Psst. Mark, buddy. We are trading with India, in fact if they agree to buy a whole bunch of fighter jets, we're throwing in the Aircraft Carrier Kitty Hawk for free. Wadda Deal!

If you think that this episode should draw absolutely unequivocal outrage from the presidential candidates, your right, it did. From the two guys running for President of Tiawan.

The United States, however, just took them OFF the list of the worlds worst human rights violators.

Now I'm confused.

The Most Liberal Right Wing Blogger Is ...

Hands down, Armando/Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft

This will be no comments to this post.

Dude, you can't be considered champion of the "Big Tent" when you close the flap every other post. At least keep comments open long enough so your sycophants can correct your grammar.

Keep it up and I'll have to start a petition for Skippy to evict you from Blogtopia.

Thank Goodness For Bloggers

Otherwise this democracy thingy would be really hard to understand.

Fortunately, we have rather insightful people like Mark Schmitt at Tapped who sorts out the "why" of the ongoing Florida re-vote controversy.

Clinton's only ally is uncertainty. The minute it becomes clear what will happen with Michigan and Florida -- re-vote them, refuse to seat them, or split them 50-50 or with half-votes, as some have proposed -- is the minute that Clinton's last "path to the nomination" closes. The only way to keep spin alive is to keep uncertainty alive -- maybe there will be a revote, maybe they'll seat the illegal Michigan/Florida delegations, maybe, maybe, maybe. In the fog of uncertainty, Penn can claim that there is a path to the nomination, but under any possible actual resolution of the uncertainty, there is not.

Schmitt points out that as soon as you reset Florida and Michigan, the race doesn't look close at all: Obama up by a million in the popular vote count and will undoubtedly do better in Florida than the 32% he originally got, cutting into The Math of her near parity in pledged delegates.

Perception being reality in politics, her perceived competitiveness vanishes, which is what she is counting on to sway superdelegates. Mind you, I'm of the opinion that seating superdelegates from Florida, where MSNBC's Chuck Todd informs us that she holds a decent advantage, is what the game's all about, but it was another blog by MikeVotes that ties Todd's suspicions with the tidbit that

Florida law prohibits election officials from authenticating votes cast in the Democratic Party's proposed do-over primary by mail, state officials said Thursday, a potentially fatal blow to the increasingly embattled plan.

Mike usefully provides the link to the Miami Herald article that explains what you won't see on the TeeVee, that Florida election officials take their responsibilities very (cough) seriously -- especially the Republican ones when they see an opportunity to screw a Democrat with an arbitrary and capricious whim, again.

Thanks Mike. And thanks as well to other bloggers who explain the inexplicable ... like Kagro X who makes sense out of the arcane parliamentary games that are possible when you have even the slightest congressional majority and need to fight and win the FISA battle. And make George Bush sing that old song about saving the "patriotic" telecoms so he can save his own hide.

The blogosphere will tell you everything you wanted to know, and even the stuff you didn't need to know.

It represents the collective wisdom, idiocy, and research facilities of humanity at large, which is why Avedon's admonition that Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur is so very apropos when translating the tattoos on Eliot Spitzer's call girl, "Kristin" a.k.a. Ashley Dupre.

You are so right Avedon. Everything does sound more impressive in Latin. And we'd never know how impressive this bimbo's belly was if it weren't for the IntertubeZ. (Hat Tip: Wonkette)

Oh, the tummy tatoo translation? The best my one semester of Latin combined with the collective wisdom of the blogosphere can tell is that her tatooist didn't speak Latin too well, but who does.

Best guess: "I was safely protected?" or something like that. The Post's "fair value" is fun, and that might be what Ashley thought tutela valui meant, but knowing she insisted that her performances be "safe" or You Don't Get The Sex, Dude, seems all too fitting.

Palast Links Spitzer Sting To Big Bank Bailout

The minute the salacious news hit that the F.B.I. was wiretapping Eliot Spitzer, and all they came up with was the Governor's dalliance with some high priced prostitutes, I smelled a rat.

Prostitution is a state crime. So why was the federal government involved?

Sure, you look hard enough and you can catch someone who's trying to hide something embarrassing at ... something, like the antiquated Mann Act. After all, how much time and how many millions of dollars were invested in in Ken Starr's witch-hunt before a crime was all but manufactured to pin on Bill Clinton.

The idea that he transferred too much money at one time to the wrong shell company seems a plausible enough explanation, at least on the surface. It also gave rise to a possible federal "structuring" charge. But seriously, they really went after this guy, and made sure we knew who "Client 9" was despite his name being withheld in the official charges.

So who stood to gain the most from Spitzer's fall? Who would want Spitzer's private hell to be "hotter than anybody else's?"

Face it, if our overly politicized justice department was genuinely concerned that Spitzer may have been the victim of some underworld blackmail scheme, why didn't they just approach the Governor and ask if he needed help? Likewise, if they thought they might have stumbled onto some kind of corruption, they could easily have gone to the governor and pressured him to turn on any co-conspirators -- the uh, real criminals.

No, they knew Eliot was up to something naughty, and wanted to nail him for it. Somebody at Justice found someone at the New York Times with as much integrity as Judy Miller, and "leaked" the name of Client 9. Somebody at the Times decided that a headline saying "Spitzer was caught with a hooker" wasn't nearly as productive as saying he was "linked to a prostitution ring." They didn't just want to expose a crime here. They wanted Spizer destroyed.

Come on. Didn't they make it sound more like he was a pimp and not a john? And wasn't that exactly what the headline writers at the NY Times wanted? This was overkill.

The ever astute Christy Hardin Smith noticed that someone, probably many someones, were cooperating with the government for quite some time, which is why the original charges were filed via information and not a grand jury proceeding. Bottom line, we know way too much, way too soon about Eliot Spizter's sex life. No reporter dug for the facts here. It was handed to them, and so was a pat answer on why the Fed's got involved at all.

If this is a government source for these reports, that says to me that someone wants this story out there in spades.

Knowing that the U.S. Justice Department has pretty much operated as a goon squad for the Republican National Committee, it's next to impossible not to conclude there wasn't a political motivation to watch Spitzer so closely, but I didn't anticipate that there was more to it than the "D" after his name.

Greg Palast thinks otherwise.

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

How could we forget the horror of finding out that Spitzer's liaison with "Kristen" was the day before Valentine's day. Oh, the tragedy for his long suffering spouse. Did you wonder what he was doing in Washington before "ordered out?" Are you curious about the timing of his demise? Did they think Hillary really needed any help throwing her campaign to the gutter?

It's the economy, not the primary, stupid.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

The Wall Street moguls assembled today to hear the imparted wisdom of His Fecklessness to "have confidence" in his miserable economy (after he's done such a heckuvajob so far) are certainly resting a bit more comfortably as they listen to Bush propose, well ... nothing really at all.

They are more confident today than they were last week. Not that the economy will improve anytime soon, but that they won't end up in jail for causing the mess in the first place.

Bush Just Gave Me A Concussion

So fast was my head spinning when The Resident said he remembered when there were Savings & Loans in his speech today before the New York Economic Club -- that he remembered his loan officer.

I find it hard to believe this guy ever had to go to a creditor, hat in hand to ask if he could renegotiate a loan to keep his house. (Keep a busted oil drilling platform operating, or to keep his stinking job, sure.) There'll be an enormous amount of deconstruction of his mendacity, but I just had to blurb this out there.

"W's" brother's savings & loan was a huge beneficiary of the S&L bailout due to Neil Bush's self-serving double-dealing; and Bush's new BFF, John McCain was up to his eyeballs in the Lincoln S&L scandal that led "Ace" to being rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for his part in the Keating Five mess.

I just can't believe with this awful and expensive history, the President even mentioned Savings and Loans ever existed.

UPDATE: Yes, he really did say this:

You know the issue like I do, though. I'm old enough to remember savings and loans, and remember who my savings and loan officer was, who loaned me my first money to buy a house.

I remember his banker for Arbusto (Shrub) Energy was the half-brother/cousin of Osama bin Laden...

And had I got in a bind, I could have walked across the street in Midland, Texas, and say, I need a little help; can you help me readjust my note so I can stay in my house? There are no such things as that type of deal anymore. As a matter of fact, the paper -- you know, had this been a modern era, the paper that had -- you know, my paper, my mortgage, could be owned by somebody in a foreign country, which makes it hard to renegotiate the note.

The mind boggles.

Carlyle and Great Depression Too

[Updated at American Street]

"Blackhedd" at Red State's braintrust picked up on news of the imminent colapse of the publicly traded Carlyle Capital Corporation, the speculative financial arm of the Carlyle Group formed last July (as far as I can tell, solely) to buy a slice of the Big Shitpile, possibly in anticipation of some kind of bailout or other corporate welfare mechanism.

Partake of the wisdom of a radical freemarketeer's gift for understatement:

Is there an appropriate policy response to this? I wish you hadn't asked.

The free-market approach is to let the chips fall where they may. We will probably end up with a massive de-leveraging of the financial system, and a long slow period of balance-sheet rebuilding. Ultimately, we'll get a stronger system out of it. But the Great Depression wasn't any fun, and Great Depression II won't be any fun either.

The aggressive-policy response is even worse. The taxpayers could end up owning several trillion dollars' worth of home mortgages. How are you going to fund that? And more importantly, what would the price be?

Not even a hint that a tighter regulator scheme might help shorten the duration or prevent a recurrence, even in this mythical future where we "get a stronger system out of it."

Flash: Nothing could possibly be worse than a second Great Depression, you moron. Don't even go there unless you already cornered the market on soup kitchen franchises.

Wasn't greater scrutiny of financial institutions a by-product of the Great Depression that lead to America's robust economy all the baby-boomers expected to last 4-eva? What on earth is going to prevent an even bigger shitpile from forming out of the ashes of the current financial meltdown without a tighter regulatory scheme, something like the one systematically dismantled under Reagan/Bush and continued to evaporate with even more enthusiasm under the Cheney administration's disaster capitalists?

No doubt some of the free market purists must have thought Treasury Secretary Paulson sounded like one of FDR's New Dealers with his downright Marxist talk of imposing new rules for mortgage brokers and credit agencies today.

No doubt Paulson's plan is window dressing, closing the barn door too late. But I wouldn't be surprised that like Admiral Fallon, Paulson might be persuaded to enter early retirement for suggesting the Friedman Fundamentalists might have been a tad negligent here.

Chris in Paris @ Americablog:

A small dose of regulation could have lessened the blow for everyone but no, the Republicans would have none of it. Where are all of those big talkers now that their self-regulation ideas are dragging down everyone? Notice how quiet they have become?

Only Redstate's Blackhedd seems to have anything to say today on behalf of Right Wing Blogistan. And he's just daft. The rest of the regurgitators are getting nothing but static on their squack boxes since everyone who usually feeds them talking points is either out on a ledge or setting up new dummy corporations in Paraguay.

Blackhedd warns "Great Depression II" looms, yet without so much as an attempt to think through alternative ways of cushioning the blow, government intervetion or even a wholesale bailout -- he determines that doing anything at all is too fraught with uncertainty and scary-bad because, well ... it has to be ... cuz Teh Gubmint is always bad ... Mmmkay ... and taxpayers shouldn't be responsible for making society better, or keeping it from getting worse, or spreading risk around so the supply-sider created monsters don't flush us all down the tubes with the collapse of their Ponzie scheme.

Only a kool-aide drinking, fundamentalist libertarian deregulator would think anything could possibly be worse than the financial death spiral the words, "Great Depression II" bring to mind *if* it might mean taxes get raised or corporations might be forced to work in the public interest.

"Conservative" has always been code for greedy cheap old bastards that want to take it all with them when they croak, and it always will be.

Excellent Insight Of The Day

Pam Spaulding on race and sexism, Olbermann, Ferraro, and the death spiral of the Presidential Campaign:

Sadly, it’s obvious that we are only playing whack-a-mole.

I Honestly Hope This Is True

I truly hope that our Justice Department is functioning as it should, that there is a compelling reason the FBI was investigating Governor Spitzer and he wasn't just a political target as recent history of Gonzales rousting Ashcroft in his hospital room, illegal wiretapping run amok, the US Attorney's Scandal, and the railroading of Alabama Governor Siegelman might suggest.

Newsday via Josh:
But Spitzer had the money broken down into several smaller amounts of less than $10,000 each, apparently to avoid federal regulations requiring the reporting of the transfer of $10,000 or more, the sources said. The regulations are aim to help spot possible illegal business activities, such as fraud or drug deals.

***

The bank, as is required by law, filed an SAR, or Suspicious Activity Report, with the Internal Revenue Service, reporting the transfer of the money that exceeded $10,000, but had been broken down into smaller amounts, the sources said. …

The assumption, the sources said, was that Spitzer was being victimized either by a blackmailer or an impostor. The agents also speculated that perhaps the governor was involved in some sort of political corruption, the sources said.

It is beyond any doubt that Spitzer was stupid, arrogant and reckless beyond belief just for thinking he could be who he is and still get away with an extra-marital affair, let alone pay for it and never get caught. My hat is off the the professionalism of the ladies at the Emperor's Club for the discretion they were so handsomely paid to provide.

Having such a high profile mark on the hook, a guy who made his bones as a law and order champion and even busted a couple of prostitution rings, provides an almost irresistible target for blackmail by an organization that is by definition a criminal syndicate. Admirably, for "Kristen" and her friends, it was all just business.

So for now I'm satisfied that Spitzer's own stupidity got his ass in the sling ... figuratively that is ... I think.

Meanwhile, between Eliot, Gerry Ferraro's outrageous remarks, and just getting the snot beat out of her in Mississippi, this is turning out to be a pretty shitty week for Hillary Clinton, don't you think?

Takes One To Know One

And if anyone knows the ins and outs of being "a ass," it's Liberal Fascism author Goldberg.

This has been a problem for years. I quote — or even make reference to — Dickens' line from Oliver Twist that the "law is a ass" and then I have to spend the next few days responding to email from people who think that I don't have any clue about when or where to use "a" versus "an."

Honestly, this guy takes all the sport out of mocking.

Should Spitzaer Stay Or Go

Two Words: Bob Taft.

I reference the former convicted Governor of Ohio not as anty defense or encouragement for Spitzer to duke it out and hang on -- but as an example of why he should step down as soon as possible (although I can't begrudge him for holding out long enough to use his resignation as a bargaining chip with prosecutors.)

Taft was corrupt politically, not personally, and his crimes were not as readily understandable to the public at large as paying for sex. Nevertheless, his approval rating went down so low, single digits even, that anyone even remotely associated with him merely by party affiliation suffered. The Statehouse was swept clean of Republicans and for the first time in a long time the GOP legislature was no longer veto-proof.

Spitzer is now political poison and due to his unique and high profile association with the Junior Senator from New York, he's not doing her or any other Democrat in Albany any favors by staying in the Governor's mansion one minute longer than it takes to make a deal with prosecutors. That much time I'll give him, even though it hurts, but to even suggest that he ride this out like Taft did after he was convicted is as stupid as paying a couple grand for a hand-job.

The Art of the Media Takedown

by shep

Considering the people he went after, Elliot Spitzer painted one giant target on his back. The uber-rich never forgive or forget; they get even. Once you’ve sold your soul, “the game” is all that’s left. So I can’t speak much for the wisdom the Governor showed getting caught with his pants down because there was no there there (wisdom, I mean, I have no knowledge of what’s in Spitzer’s pants).

But, (listen up, Blitzer) having sex with prostitute isn’t:

1) “being involved in a prostitution ring”

2) any of the public’s business, just because he’s a public official

or

3) unethical.

He had sex and he paid for it. Sad but, considering our puritanical, repressed and otherwise backward attitudes toward the perfectly normal and healthy (and quite fun I might add) act of having sex with another person (I do have some standards), it is totally understandable. And, unlike many gasbags in the media and on the political right, he was never self-righteous and hypocritical about sex.

On the other hand, what the whores in the media sell and what they sell it for is a completely different and a completely shameful matter.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Spitzer aka Client 9 Another Victim Of GOP Justice

I hope FOX is right, and that Eliot Spitzer will be resigning after he apologized once he got caught making arrangements to meet with a high priced hooker.

The sooner this is off the front pages, the better it is for all democrats, especially a certain Senator from New York.

Mind you, this is just getting some on the side, not accepting bribes from defense contractors. It's enough to ruin a political career, especially if the guy is a former prosecutor, but hardly deserving of the lengthy jail sentence so many Republicans are facing and what others should be facing once we get a functional justice department. I am convinced that if Spitzer's name had an "R" after it instead of a "D" he's still be referred to as "Client 9."

I don't think for a minute it's merely a coincidence that the Republican controlled federal government was tapping the phones of a Democratic Governor, or that they're clueless who is bombing recruiting centers in Manhattan but are intimately aware of the sexual proclivities of rival politicians in Albany. They targeted Spitzer to find dirt. Guess what? He's dirty -- and may have been hoisted on his own petard, at least these guys would want you to see it that way.

I feel so much safer knowing that the 1910 Mann Act is being so fiercely enforced, justifying Federal Tax dollars being spent to expose someone crossing state lines to pay for blow jobs. I guess there are no employers to investigate for hiring undocumented workers, or contractors to examine whether they are bilking the government out of more billions, or ah ... any terrorists to watch maybe.

No Halliburton employees have been indicted lately, have they? Has anyone brought any Diebold employees before a grand jury to answer some hard questions? But making a date with an escort service and instead of spending cash on flowers, candy, dinner, hotel and a movie, Eliot cuts to the chase and pays cash (hey, he's a busy guy) -- damn him for all time.

He got caught, and he has to go -- only because the GOP has this whole "culture of corruption thing going against them and I'd like to keep that alive for a bit. But geez, is this really how the FBI should be spending their time?

What bullcrap. After seeing what they did to Alabama Governor Don Siegelman this sad affair seals it for me. The United States Justice Department is a wholly own subsidiary of the Republican Party, and that ain't right.

It wasn't even gay sex with an underage page. What a shame. I hope she was good.