I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Go go go first again!
Amazing how they re-write history, isn't it?
Fairness Doctrine, please.
After ousting Donohue, they brought in Scarborough Dead Intern.
Try to imagine them giving Gary Condit a show. Both guys are remarkably similar in that they both left Congress after a young, healthy woman working in their offices died under extremely mysterious and nefarious circumstances.
But hey, IOKIYAR
Thanks for posting that Atrios. That review was the first thing I read this morning, and I was as dumbfounded as you were. His analysis of of all three books sucked. It's the same old story about the run up to the war. Even now, the anti-war voice still doesn't merit any respect. Even though we were right we were still wrong. Oy
Thats twice in as many days; not for nothing but Gary Condit didnt kill that intern Levy, she was killed by a serial killer. I am no fan of Condit's but....
SCUM - so-called-unbiased-media.
I couldn't stand Donahue's style, but apparently there were others that could.
It was his hair that always "wigged" me out. But Marlo was kinda hot.
Shrewd?
I dont think that means what he thinks it means.
from the archives of Paknews.com - the American Muslim Council:
What is even more significant in the longer term is the apparent transformation of the relationship between the Fourth Estate and the Executive it is supposed to monitor and hold accountable. In a scathing attack on the somewhat sycophantic pandering to the Presidency post 911, James Wolcott writes in the June 2003 issue of 'Vanity Fair' that since September 11, much of the press has dropped to both knees before George W. Bush to take dictation'.
This view was corroborated in the June 17 column in The Toronto Sun by the well-known writer, Eric Margolis: 'Big media caved in (to the Bush Agenda), sometimes sounding like a public relations arm of the administration. The big lie prevailed (as) I scanned the major US networks for voices challenging the distortions and bunkum coming from the White House. There was virtually none.'
Hey, there is no "truth". History, even recent history, is all spin.
OT,
So his remarks on Thursday suggested to some lawmakers on Friday that Mr. Rumsfeld was either out of touch with what had captured headlines and evening news programs this week, or was reluctant to acknowledge the panels' new findings.
or c) is a lying sack of shit. dog bites man
And all those people who turned out to protest the war?
Well, some were 'foreigners,' and we know they don't count. Unless, of course, they're the foreigners we're coming to liberate. And then when they don't appreciate their 'liberation,' they become "insurgents" or even "terrorists."
So any way you look at it, they don't count.
And the people in the streets weren't engaging in "debate," and weren't on cable TV, and didn't really matter because they didn't understand the issues, even though it turns out they were right about everyone of them, and....
I can't go any farther with that. To discuss Weisberg's position in any detail is to give it credibility. It has none. He's ignoring reality.
It's simply amazing. Denial seems to have become the new state of mind of choice of anyone who gets into print in a "mainstream" publication.
"Truth," such as it is, must be confined to the wings, the fringe, the margin.
I suppose it's always been this way, but that doesn't make it any less tiresome....
Howsa bout they give us the microphone now? hunh.
Careful, Atrios. The land of media scrutiny in the Unites States is one of psychosis, death and an appalling indifference to human suffering.
Drives you batshit. Good way to ruin a weekend.
Forget who said it first, but:
Welcome to the post-truth.
I told the Mrs. not to subscribe to the damn thing. For some reason seeing it in print always makes me more livid than seeing it on the screen.
Wolcott wrote an article for Vanity Fair in March of 2003. I can't get the full copy but the abstract is this:
Pres Bush's war hawks and their media pigeons have silenced dissent over a war with Iraq by disqualifying celebrities, academia and others from the debate. Opposition has been discounted in advance with a knowing sneer.
My GAAWWD! This piece of Weisberg's isn't even coherent.
Just to pick a few spots at random:
He says Bush hatred is now bigger than Clinton hatred was...and then later says it's not really hatred, but based on administration policies.
Well, exuuuuse us for having informed political positions!
Then he talks about artists and writers who are in the same Bush-bashing mania but who are not, in general, partisan. Yeah, good point, Jake. And that's just like the Clinton bashers. Right.
So, lemme see, this president is so bad that people actually get upset over his policies and normally staid people become completely radicalized.
Jeez. I guess that goes triple for all of those irrational Nobel economists, National Acadamy Scientists, conservative foreign policy leaders and goddamn GENERALS who now hate Bush--oh, wait, I forgot--it's not "hate", it's just some sort of hard-to-fathom fashion trend.
I can hardly wait for Weisberg's next epiphany: that there're a whole bunch of otherwise sane people who hate highly paid, willfully ignorant journalists.
There was a time when I wouldn't mind this kind of junk, because it usually would have been considered the province of cranks. However, this guy is the EDITOR of Slate, and should, in the very least, fact check his assertions, rather than parrot the conventional wisdom, as spoken within a insular part of his world.
It isn't what he is saying that bugs me so much, it is his sloppiness and lack of intellectual rigor I find discouraging. I wish these liberal hawks would come out and admit the real reason they supported the Iraqi war, rather than push the fantasy it was supposed to bring Western Democracy to the Middle East.
Rumefeld:Superb Job :: [Friedman,Kaus,Sullivan]:Shrewd Commentators
It's not so much the right-wing hosts who are the problem as it is that they either won't invite competent liberal spokesmen on their shows, or there are no competent liberal spokesman. The hosts don't even bother to try to referee the frothing right-wingers despite their incivility and general boorishness. I can't imagine why anyone would agree to go on a show opposite Ann Coulter, knowing full well that she will interrupt and shout over anyone else trying to make another case or refute her lies, and the host will just sit back and allow it to go on. That bitch could be shut down if someone, host or liberal guest, would just say, "Ann, did your parents teach you that being rude and disrespectful is the way to win a debate? It's not. I'm here for a discussion. If you can't behave civilly and like an adult, if it's just going to be a segment of you ranting over all opposing viewpoints, I'll just leave now." Why have no liberal guests ever just gotten up and walked off the set when this type of shit starts going on? Why do they not simply refuse to appear with rightwingers so lacking in credibility? The fact that they continue to appear with folks like Coulter or Malkin on these shows is what gives these lunatics a megaphone for their insanity.
Why the hell isn't the DNC schooling its mouthpieces in how to deal with this kind of crap? If all the sudden Tweety couldn't book a liberal or Dem guest opposite the Coulters and Malkins, if the response from those contacted to appear opposite them was, "no thanks, this is a serious issue you want to discuss, and I'm not willing to discuss it with un-serious and dishonest people like Coulter", Tweety would be stuck alone on air with the bitch. How long do you think it would take before she stopped being invited?
OTOH, there's always (for now) Krugman in the Times. Of course, he doesn't have a Sunday slot. It would be sweet if he did.
For some reason seeing it in print always makes me more livid than seeing it on the screen.
I feel the same way. When I see this kind of shit in the paper it has way more impact on me. Maybe because you phisically hold the paper in your hands that makes it more repellent.
This wasn't a good way for me to start my sunny Saturday morning. But even misconceived bloviation can lead to wisdom: after reading the Noonan anecdote, I am going to drive the 20 miles to my nearest Barnes & Noble and buy "Attack Poodles."
Aint called SCUM for nuttin.
Makes you wish for Jonathan Yardley!
Weisberg is awful. He was awful as a political commentator, as an editor he's worse, and as a defender of the press from left criticism he's the absolute worst. Mealy-mouthed, pious, willing to argue that Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are both shrewd and honest. God he's awful. Thanks a lot, I don't describe, and now I need a drink. No tomato juice in the house, either.
Damn, I hate feeling like I need a drink this early in the day.
And I'm tired of feeling like half the country is having a nervous breakdown while pretending they're channeling Jesus. The combination of vile hatred about every Democrat (especially Clinton, at the time) and liberal plus the victimization-whining act is more than I can stand.
Do these idiots believe this?
Subscribe. I need coffee too. Hey, that gives me an idea...
Got so mad listening to CSPAN this morning I just had to get up and mop the kitchen floor. When did Kerry reporting stories he had heard about atrocities in Vietnam become, Kerry committed the atrocities and should be tried for war crimes?
Grrrrrrrrr. If this keeps up, I will for the first time in my old life have a spotless home.
Kaus is "shrewder" than Conason or Alterman?
Slate has become so sophomoric that it's unreadable. The last article I read (and will ever read) was one about how bored Chris Suellentrop is from hearing the same Edwards speech over and over. Too fucking bad!
As to the run up to the war, it was very well known that Saddam almost certainly had no nucledar weapons, and that if he did have chemical and biological weapons, he had no way of delivering them outside his country. The few knowledgeable people allowed on TV clearly said this.
BTW, I'm reading Wolcott's book, and it's great.
A YEAR ago, it was still possible to debate whether the phenomenon of Bush hating had taken on the virulent dimensions of Clinton loathing in the 1990's. On the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, there's no longer any argument. By any measure, Bush bashing is bigger.
Simply put, this is nuts.
Let me know when Bush has been accused of murdering a childhood friend. Then I'll think maybe there's an equivalent.
And as to volume of Bush-bashing v. Clinton-bashing, it's not even close.
The Mayor of Looneyville --dead staffer and uses the military as a costume shop just like the chimp in chief
or as Atrios dubbed him Michael Savage jr. and he has certainly lived up to that
I mean, you couldn't turn on your television without seeing them on TV news somewhere. It was like Alterman-a-palooza on CNN!
I remember in the months leading up to the war, Alterman kept showing up at my house and I couldn't get rid of the guy. He was all "You know Saddam poses no threat to us whatsoever", and I was like, "I know, Eric, but you've gotta reach a wider audience. This door to door isn't terribly efficient. Why don't you try CNN?" And he was all "I tried, but every time they see me coming, they pull the shades and hit the lights, and when I ring the bell, I swear I hear someone yell 'Nobody home!' and then there's giggling and shushing."
I suppose we should be glad we know where the lunatic fringe is, so we can keep an eye on it.
Just wish it was on the fringe, though.....
(Kaus, shrewd? I can't make heads or tails of anything he says, even when he writes abour cars (or when he did, when I tried to read him). Friedman, shrewd? He's been called an ignorant idiot by almost every scholar of Middle Eastern culture I've read. Good grief. Talk about sucking up to your host and parading your ignorance in the same breath....)
(and what's this about "vigorous debate," anyway? Sure, over whether Saddam had more tons of sarin gas than anthrax, I suppose. Over whether he'd use it all first against us, or against Israel. And just how badly he had bamboozled Hanx Blix & Co. As I recall it, that was the topic of the "vigorous debate." Honestly. Why does such ignorance get printed in anything bearing the logo of the "newspaper of record"?)
Lucky_Ducky - Eh, the right learned the whining victimization routine from the fundamentalists. They always whine because they think it makes them "christian martyrs" if they whine really loudly about being persecuted.
They never stop, even when they get their way. Their social skills don't go much beyond kindergarten.
Kaus is "shrewder" than Conason or Alterman?
The funny thing about that is the slightly pejorative connotation of "shrewd".
Yeah, sure, I'll go with that--Kaus is more "shrewd", as in he willingly embraces a form of intellectual dishonesty that advances his career in a way that Conason and Alterman would never do.
Weisberg is shrewd (or, at least, thinks he's shrewd) in the same way. Notice the way he shrewdly drops the hints that he, too, is a Bush basher--while being able to rise above the mere rabble, and see Things As They Really Are.
For example, in the closing paragraph: "Most of them share the view of Garry Trudeau, who portrays Bush in 'Doonesbury' as an asterisk in a Roman helmet. Accurate or not -- and I do tend to agree with it -- the view of Bush as a basically limited and shallow person has certain consequences." [emphasis added].
See? He's "one of us", only smarter, cuz he understands the Consequences, unlike us poor plebian Bush-haters.
God, I hate these bastards. Well, it's not really "hate"--it's more like "I abhor their moral cowardace".
OT - Off to the Tacoma dome in a few minutes to watch and listen to our next President of these United States...
Let me recommend:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
which tells us that right now, it's 5.30pm in Paris. That should be good enough, hein?
Atrios, I think we're going to have to give up reading. Not good for our state of mental well-being.
The CNN/FOX/whatnot continues to slip; I have never seen anything like it. I am an "old guy"... is my brain just suddenly losing it?? I don't want to believe that.
Let me know when Bush has been accused of murdering a childhood friend. Then I'll think maybe there's an equivalent.
Let me know when people are coming out of the woodwork accusing Clinton of sexual congress with women not his wife.
Let me know when Bush is investigated up the yin-yang for Texas Stadium; or Harken Energy; or Arbusto. Let me know when his aides, friends, acquaintances, business associates, wife's business associates, and anyone he ever made eye contact with, are interrogated by the FBI, brought before a grand jury, or deposed in a civil suit brought against him by a third party.
Really. Seriously. Why does stupidity and rank ignorance like this get a platform under the banner of "opinion"? Is "opinion" just: "whatever the hell he wants to say, so long as we know him and he says one nice thing about one of our "name" columnists"? While "news" is: whatever somebody told me, even if I have reason to know it's a blatant falsehood, but I'll publish it anyway, because I'm "objective (read: a conduit, not a person)"?
Do these idiots believe this?
Lucky_Ducky | Email | Homepage | 08.28.04 - 11:23 am | #
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I think they do, It gets them through their awful, awful day.
They all have blood on their hands-- not that they give a shit.
Worst. Media. Ever.
They all have blood on their hands-- not that they give a shit.
They consider it nail polish.
Damn, I hate feeling like I need a drink this early in the day.
And I'm tired of feeling like half the country is having a nervous breakdown while pretending they're channeling Jesus. The combination of vile hatred about every Democrat (especially Clinton, at the time) and liberal plus the victimization-whining act is more than I can stand.
You hit the nail on the head, and I don't even drink! But I do keep on thinking of all the combination of things that would go with booze so a drink a nine in the morning would be palatable.
I just don't get what it take to get middle America to get it.
Bush used to be an upwardly mobile loser. Now he's a dangerous fucking lunatic with a serious God complex. I am thouroughly convinced they are working up to nuking something. You know, to show the middle east that we are strong because that's the only thing they understand...jeebus.
The worst part is that it makes me want to stop thinking, and how scary is that as a concept. To be so fed up that you can't even think about them anymore, even to think of ways to stop them.
Fairness Doctrine, please.
Vicki Stein - 10:47 am
Not the answer.
When it comes to rules and laws, the reality is you are dealing with people that interpret and enforce them.
Although legislation does slow them up a bit, you can't legislate morality. Even the Geneva Conventions couldn't protect the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Finding a persuasive counter-measure like Michael Moore's F 9/11 is the better response.
The GOP is not "playing" the media. A "liberal" swift boat barrage would be a total nonstarter.
Donahue's treatment by MSNBC even illustrates this.
I do think Weisberg is wrong on all counts, but I do wonder about this one:
"Indeed, it a questionable whether the broadcasters Wolcott chain-saws have a strong persuasive effect on the public, as opposed to simply reinforcing the biases of a relatively small number of like-minded viewers (FNC's top-rated show has an audience of 2 million to 3 million, as compared with 7 million to 12 million for each of the network evening news broadcasts). The audience for political gab skews old, male and conservative; MSNBC and CNN have tried to emulate Fox's right-wing bully boys not because of marching orders from Karl Rove but because of Fox's commercial success."
Is there anyone who agrees with this?
I just don't get what it take to get middle America to get it.
Genoasail
==================
Honest to god! After everything this idiot has done, that ANYBODY could support him and his insane clown posse is just beyond me. Literally boggles the mind.
If a $100.00 bill popped out of my TV once a minute while watching MSNBC, I still wouldn't watch it. I guess I just have too much self-respect for that sort of thing. In fact, MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC and any other channel even containg the letters N, B, and C had been programmed off my TV for almost THREE YEARS now. I don't like to enable scum.
They all have blood on their hands-- not that they give a shit.
They consider it nail polish.
That was delightfully hateful!
Thanks Robert! Now I'm ready to start my day!
These guys have painted themselves into a corner where they have been throughly discredited, especially when they should have known...by using their little gray cells...that some skepticism was in order with regard to Iraq, in the very least. Now they are having to use the dodge that nobody could have known that the Bushies were so incompentent, so corrupt, so ideologically driven that that the Iraqi adventurism was nothing but a sideshow. It went from being an obvious potential disaster to an obvious disaster, from which there seems to be not escape. Nice work, boys.
Well, this little clique is torn between the old 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' meme, and lashing out at those who tended to believe that Saddam was broke, the sanctions were working, and he was neuralized into a position where war wasn't necessary.
I came this conclusion by paying attention for the past 15 years to what has been going on in the Middle East, and as bete noirs go, Saddam was a pretty toothless one, as shown in the first gulf war.
Also, liberal hawks showed incredible naivete that they would have a seat at the table with regard to Democratizing Iraq, because the jobs were passed out way before they signed on.
Weinberg's rationale now seems to be anything but the truth. And if they keep up this dishonest post mortem, they will look like the idiotic cranks which they are.
I'm sorry to mention this, but I notice how many people on this blog keep refering to the lunatic fringe and keep whining that you just "wish it was on the fringe." Well the fact that it isn't on the fringe might cause you to reevaaluate your remarks. Because if you feel that mainstream commentary and mainstream views are "fringe" views, then you might want to look up in a dictionary the word fringe. Here, I'll save you the trouble...
fringe-(1) A decorative border or edging of hanging threads, cords, or strips, often attached to a separate band.
(2)Something that resembles such a border or edging.
(3) A marginal, peripheral, or secondary part: “They like to hang out on the geographical fringes, the seedy outposts” (James Atlas).
(4) Those members of a group or political party holding extreme views: the lunatic fringe.
(5) Any of the light or dark bands produced by the diffraction or interference of light.
(6) A fringe benefit.
Now that you can understand the proper way to use the word "fringe", do me a favor and use it about yourselves. Cause your whining and complaining and fanatical beliefs are clearly on the "fringe".
BTW, definition 4 particularly refers to the majority of posters who have responded to this article.
"Why have no liberal guests ever just gotten up and walked off the set when this type of shit starts going on?"--Jennifer
I can't *tell* you how many times I've asked myself the same question. I've even fantasized about being a guest on one of these shows myself and doing precisely that.
If it became standard procedure, the hosts would either have to start behaving themselves and making their right-wing guests behave, or stop inviting liberals on their shows.
It would be particularly effective on shows like O'Reilly's, which is frequently guest-versus-host rather than guest-versus-guest. When the sole guest walks off the show, it's no fun for the host to have to punt for the rest of the segment.
The tactic would have to be used judiciously, limiting it to cases where it was crystal clear the liberal guest wasn't being allowed to make his/her points, so the host couldn't later claim the guest walked out to avoid questions or because he/she had no comeback.
Also, as soon as the interruptions start, the guest should announce his/her intention to walk out if repeatedly interrupted.
Refusing to come on a show with a crackpot right-winger guest in the first place, though, isn't such a hot idea; it can too easily be portrayed as cowardice.
And look at Bill Moyers, who is being assholed off PBS following the election. His early challenge of Bush was as courageous as Krugman's. Given that the majority of the country say the country is headed in the wrong direction, that the Iraq war was wrong, etc., isn't that confirmation that people like Moyers were right all along? But that does not save them from their fate.
Mr. Jeffers said:
'I can't go any farther with that. To discuss Weisberg's position in any detail is to give it credibility. It has none. He's ignoring reality.'
Hi, this is alternate reality world calling. We've lost some folks who are stranded there in reality. If you hear someone claiming that the Iraq war was actually debated in the media, please send them back. They need to take their medication.
Oh, and if you run into Alan Keyes tell him we don't want him back.
Mind-blowing. Truly.
I keep getting these odd little flashbacks to the lead-up to this war.
Co-Worker: But we've got to go in and take away his WMD. That's a violation of the UN agreement.
Me: They're never going to find them.
C: Why makes you say that?
M: I don't think there are any.
C: How can you think that?
M: I just do. He's being too open with the inspectors that are there right now. When they had things to hide, they were a lot more touchy. I'm telling you they're never going to find WMDs. Just watch. You'll see.
C: Yeah, well you know what?
M: What?
C: I don't really care. Doesn't matter to me.
I was shocked, shocked to find that nonchalance about war at my workplace.
Donahue's show could've brought MSNBC some much needed ratings by being the only liberal news show out there. When it's half the country on one side, and they have all the news shows, they scatter their viewership all over the "dial" (love antiquated technological references). That means half the country's on the other side, and they have one show. That makes for a huge market share for that show.
Now tell me the media's driven by the desire to make money. Please. I can't see how that argument can possibly be made when examples like this are out there.
Oh and another thing! Michael Moore not shrewd? Wow. I'd have thought he was pretty much a definition of shrewd. The things he gets people to admit to him, the footage he uses, the way he structures his arguments...
Guess that's just blind luck or something.
Wow, NJRob. Masterful deconstruction of our thinking.
And to think, all you needed was a dictionary and a mind unencumbered by thought.
BTW, definition 4 particularly refers to the majority of posters who have responded to this article.
What a calculatedly poor put-down.
The reference to the "lunatic fringe" (actually, I only said "fringe") was clearly meant to denigrate the opinions of Weisberg.
"Lunatic fringe" itself is a term meant only to denigrate the group it is applied to, by labelling them as so extreme only fools and madmen would agree.
Turnabout is fair play, and fair enough. But you didn't even reach my main contention: that truth itself is almost always on the fringe, and almost always ignored by the "mainstream," who prefer their own standards to that of "truth," whatever that standard may be.
In other words: you missed. Try aiming at the target next time.
And don't throw any more definitions around, especially when you don't know how to use them. Don't come around trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.
HB - I think it's probably a combination of both, plus a healthy does of laziness thrown in.
Spirit of Howard Beale - I agree with you on counter-measures. The way the Dems and liberals have played this so far is "we have to go on these shows to get our message out." What happens instead is that the host of the show presides over a free-for-all, wherein the rude and belligerent always monopolize the airtime and "win" due to drowning out the other side. And because "rude and belligerent" are prized Republican character traits, they "win". We'd be better off if we simply refused to participate, since at least that way we don't come off as unable to explain/defend why our positions on the issues are better.
We'd be better off to say, "hey, we'll come back on whenever you decide that civil, responsible and honest discussion is a better model than the Jerry Springer model you seem to favor right now."
While I don't think the final answer is liberal TV and radio networks - if we follow the Faux/Limbaugh model then soon everyone will be preaching to their particular choir and there will be no back-and-forth at all - it would probably be a good thing for the near future. Those networks could at least re-establish standards for discourse, and invite responsible voices from the other side to appear - as long as they follow the rules of civility. Don't know if anything would force the Limbaughs and O'Reillys to ever follow suit, but it might just turn out that more people prefer news and discussion absent the Jerry Springer circus atmosphere, and the Limbaughs and O'Reillys would be marginalized and start to be seen as the fringe characters they are.
God bless you, Atrios. Sometimes I think it's just me. Nice to have confirmation that I'm not losing my mind, or if I am, at least others are losing theirs as well.
Can you imagine what they do with the big stuff, if they lie about the little stuff like this?
Actually, I believe
>Is there anyone who agrees with this?
When Disney decided the country is more conservative now, and that is why they went with Stossel as the co anchor of 20/20, I figured that this was a marketing decision.
None of these guys who make the talent and programming decisions are very smart. Cable still pays less than the broadcast nets, and the people who do it now are even stupider than they were in the 80's with regard to their dayparts.
The people who are making these decisions are looking a data from research done on the cheap(by guys who are hustling to get their own notions of what will be successful on the air), their sales departments, and from programming executives will not take risks.
The size of the cable news audience share has been static for the last five years. But to understand what is going on here, you have to look at the market share in ALL programming, not just cable news.
Oh Haloscan is not nice this morning.
Actually, I believe that The Insane Clown Posse is going on tour this month for ACT.
Speaking as an historian tho, I really do find it fascinating to watch 'history' being re-modelled, word by word, action by action, every day. And you-all thought history was like geometry, right? Something that just is? Naahhh...
Speaking of print versus screen: maybe we should all borrow a leaf (as it were) from G B Shaw and write Weisberg and/or the Times. "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house with your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me."
What happens instead is that the host of the show presides over a free-for-all, wherein the rude and belligerent always monopolize the airtime and "win" due to drowning out the other side.
You raise good points, Jennifer, but I think this is something we need to be able to go with for a while as part of the overall strategy of regaining the media.
"Liberals are Pussies" is a dominant meme, and in this regard ducking out is only slightly better than getting shouted down. The solution is to find some loose cannon types who will just punch one of these lying sacks of shit in the face on TV. The right wants WWF, and we should give it to them.
Dig the fringe New Jersey troll. Also dig this from 8/15/04 Pollingreport.com:
"Do you believe that what we were told by the government before the Iraq war about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's links to Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization, was generally accurate or misleading?"
37% say accurate
60% say misleading
Also, dig the fact that Kerry is up by 10 in New Jersey. Corzine is 54 - 24 approve/ dissaprove. (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x13021.xml)
Suck it NJRob. Or go to Iraq.
I just think the American people are so fucking sorry and it's like Donahue said about them, "If that's what they want." Now we have thousands dead including almost a thousand of our troops. They'll be nearly 3 thousand of our troops dead before it's over.
Sorry ass pieces of shit.
And to think, all you needed was a dictionary and a mind unencumbered by thought.
SNORRRRKKKK....hee.
Ya' know, I finally quit watching CNN for good. I admit I peaked this morning to see that "Dolce" has a new hairdo for her man. Just had to have a look-see at the new pageboy.
Instead of beating the hell out of my TV this morning I decoupaged a mirror frame, made some homemade tamales, cooked breakfast for my sister, called and volunteered for door duty at an event for our congressional candidate tonight, made a new chandelier shade and did some laundry.
God, I don't know how these people sleep at night but I sure am sleeping better.
I think the only people watching CNN are that "gang of 500" that The Note's always talking about (cancelled my e-mail newsletter from them too), a few members of congress, a DC insider or two and a couple of Jimmyraybob's from Mexico, Indiana.
I mean, why waste my time getting pissed at CNN when I can use the energy for a positive, actionable cause.
But I'll tell ya'....Begala and Carville need to get off that ship before it sinks for good though.
What happens instead is that the host of the show presides over a free-for-all, wherein the rude and belligerent always monopolize the airtime and "win" due to drowning out the other side. And because "rude and belligerent" are prized Republican character traits, they "win". We'd be better off if we simply refused to participate, since at least that way we don't come off as unable to explain/defend why our positions on the issues are better.
Jennifer - 12:03 pm
I think a starting point would be the tactic used against O'Reilly. That dude studied and prepared for him before showing up on his show. Despite all the things you mention about winger behavior, O'Reilly looked memorably bad and he prevailed. If fact it left such a scar on O'Reilly that he revisited it several times.
I don't think we can move away from the current situation without a "Fair and Balanced" (but not extreme) liberal newspaper and TV outlet. This should polarize viewers to Fox and the new network forcing the CNNs, MSNBCs, etc. away from there Faux lite imitations. Eventually if it continues to be as extreme as it is today, Faux will become "The Daily Worker" of conservative news and ignored.
See, GWPDA, that was just what was in my head.
When one is so far out on the political continum, that one is one is one banana peel away from the abyss, it is sort of funny when one calls center-left pragmatists part of a fringe.
This is like saying Target is a ultra hip boutique.
Well, if one buys one's stuff from survivalist stores on the net, I suppose one could see it that way.
Jennifer and Judith - I've never been able to understand why any self-respecting liberal would consent to be a guest on a show on Fox or CNN. Everyone knows what is going to happen - the liberal will be denigrated, mocked and not be allowed to make a coherent statement.
I think it is next door to insane to agree to it in the first place, never mind that they then sit through the abuse once they are there. It's the height of masochism.
As always these days, the mind boggles.
homemade tamales = tasty
I know james wolcott sometimes reads Atrios and comments here. Perhaps he could just challenge (politely, of course) Weisberg to support his contention of "vigorous debate" in the mainstream media prior to the war by providing examples of it, and the proportion of the coverage they represented? This seems a fairly easy issue to put to bed.
I think a compelling evidentiary counter-point would be a montage of the breathless commentary following Colin Powell's UN charade. Was there any news anchor, pundit, or anyone else on TV who didn't gravely intone, "well, Powell has laid out a rock-solid case" and then fail, within the next 2 weeks, to report on the unravelling of virtually every piece of "evidence" in Powell's case?
Weisberg is a tool.
Tena - or, as Kelly Bundy would say, "the mind wobbles." 
When one is so far out on the political continum, that one is one is one banana peel away from the abyss, it is sort of funny when one calls center-left pragmatists part of a fringe.
This is like saying Target is a ultra hip boutique.
Well, if one buys one's stuff from survivalist stores on the net, I suppose one could see it that way.
When one is so far out on the political continum, that one is one is one banana peel away from the abyss, it is sort of funny when one calls center-left pragmatists part of a fringe.
This is like saying Target is a ultra hip boutique.
Well, if one buys one's stuff from survivalist stores on the net, I suppose one could see it that way.
Atrios,
You said that you questioned, before the war, whether Saddam had an active WMD program. Do you mean an active nuclear program?
I'd be curious to see the post or posts you're referring to.
I apologize. Holoscan was doing the mother of hangs for me.
(hangs head in shame)
Jennifer - Amazing isn't it, the way the commenters turned around and buried the fact that Powell's "testimony" was all lies? Broadcast news is one big litter box - all the talking head cats just start burying the shit furiously when it starts to stink.
Holy CRAP but do they lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie.
And for good measure he plugs Slate's biggest hack, "shrewder" Kaus.
Yep, history writing on the desk this morning, and a freezer full of handmade tamales. This is a good day in the neighborhood.
frankly0 - Just go scan the archives for 9/2002 - 4/2003. I remember it, but like Atrios, I won't remember any particular dates. No reason to ask Atrios to do your searching for you.
Oh, and Tena? The fundie Mormon gig is coming to a strangulated close. See this.
The Hilldale/Colorado City crowd are being squeezed, hard - the RCMP have launched a primary investigation of the cadre in Bountiful, BC, and the group trying to abscond to Texas are losing their property.
These people are of course only the very tip of the iceberg, are criminally nuts and abusive in ways that are only vaguely understood, and all this is going to help only about fifty per cent. But it's a start -
frankly,
I said repeatedly that I assumed saddam had "something" which would be breathlessly reported as "wmd" but which in reality was no such thing - some amount of anthrax, some amount of not-particularly-exciting chemical weapons. Some nasty stuff, but not enough to kill a "mass" of people with or without a decent delivery system, which he didn't have either...
Not only do they shout the other side down, they also just make shit up and throw it into the discussion as if it were a fact. Remember Quayle with "You said that, right on page 86(?) of your book." Well Gore was stuck standing there thinking Gee, I don't think I said that, but shit he's citing a page number, maybe I said something like that. By the time Gore had figured out it was a piece of crap, he had lost the mementum in the exchange, and it wasn't til a week or so later that the press reported that Quayle had made the whole thing up.
Ann Coulter recommends this method and Joe McCarthy used it well. Retractions, if they come, are either buried or come so much later than the event that nobody remembers what all the hoopla was about to begin with.
Kew - yeah, but what's maddening is, I see the shit coming out of her mouth and immediately know it's wrong and why it's wrong, and I'm not getting paid to know this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, the liberal or Democratic spokesperson just sits there.
At least Bill Maher finally called her out on it. And I notice she hasn't been on his show since.
Lies and the lying liars
Bush = Scott Peterson
appears likeable but would lie to his own mother
click homepage link to list of Bush's policy lies --in his own words and deed
You're all getting worked up over nothing! The Iraq war is about to end! At the Republican convention "progress" will be lauded,and by mid-October "victory" will be announced. Some troops will come home, even. (Makes great pictures) Thus the war and all things pertaining to it, will be swept under the rug, or buried. What are anti-war people going to do, insist the war keep going, so the Bush administration can take political hits from the issues surrounding it?
After Bush slides to a victory in the general relief, well it'll be easy to restart either this war or a new one.
The Iraq war was an artificial creation from the git-go, and they can turn it up or down as suits their needs. The media, as usual, will make every claim a reality. What are we gonna do, tell 'em no?
Laugh if you like at Mooser's prognostication (if prognostication is the word I want, I'll ask my wife) but watch- that is what they'll do.
Bush won't leave the war around to help Kerry.
I think a compelling evidentiary counter-point would be a montage of the breathless commentary following Colin Powell's UN charade. Was there any news anchor, pundit, or anyone else on TV who didn't gravely intone, "well, Powell has laid out a rock-solid case"
Bet they burnt all the tapes.
Atrios,
You're right to flip out, but take care of yourself. We need you sane. Go and get snuggles from Mrs. Atrios and the kitties. Have a virtual one from me, too.
Remember the best revenge is living well.
At the Republican convention "progress" will be lauded,and by mid-October "victory" will be announced. Some troops will come home, even.
Not to rain on your prognosticator, but Bush did that once.
Even announced victory on a ship he slowed down so the men and women wouldn't get home too soon.
Then he sent 'em all back.
If we're gonna declare victory and clear out by November, we'd better have started on June 28th or so. Take six months or better just to ship everyone back.
Oh boy, another article about all those irrational Bush Haters.
I seem to remember a time after 9/11 when Bush was wildly popular and had over 90% approval ratings. Since that time, Bush's approval ratings have fallen ~50%. Do you think that might have something to do with what's happened in the last 3 years? I mean, maybe, just possibly, people's dislike for Bush has something to do with his less than stellar record over the past few years...
oh what do I know, I'm just an irrational wild eyed Bush Hater...
And for good measure he plugs Slate's biggest hack, "shrewder" Kaus.
I guess he decided to toss in a comic relief after all those lies?
I mean..really. He writes most of the time like he's 12 years old.
Oddly enough, Miramax is very happy with Weisberg's review because a) the Book Review bracketed Attack Poodles with Graydon Carter's & Maureen Dowd's books, which they think elevates attention for the book, and b) there are a couple of juicy quotes that can be excerpted for ads. One of the things I've learned about publishing is that it's not how you, the author, feel about a review, it's how the publisher reacts--and if the publisher's happy, don't pout over the particulars.
But no question the particulars are irritating. The notion that Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are shrewder observers than the names he mentioned is ludicrous--unless Weisberg wants to defend Sullivan's "flypaper strategy" (or for that matter, Kaus's lipsmacking "Kerry Death Watch" just before Kerry made his major move during the primaries). I was agnostic about Saddam's Hussein's weapons programs, but I felt all along that even if Hussein had a few things going, a country that had been badly whipped during the first Gulf War, under sanctions for a decade, and regularly bombed to protect the "no fly zone" was no threat to us or its neighbors. And the haste with which the war was launched--Bush couldn't wait to get Hans Blix and the inspectors out of there--confirmed that the US wanted to invade Iraq no matter what.
If you want another example of the Weisberg sensibility at work--if you're blood pressure can stand it--check out James Traub's piece in the Times Sunday Magazine out tomorrow about how the "psychic substructure" of Fahrenheit 9/11 infuriates him so.
Why don't liberal hawks just go neocon and get it over with?
Do you think that might have something to do with what's happened in the last 3 years?
It makes a convenient dodge - and it's so so self-righteous, too.
Perfect for the Bushesque age.
>Why don't liberal hawks just go neocon and get it over with?
Ask David Brock.
I think Donahue was a lulu and I didn’t read all of the comment on common dreams, but it really did look to me that he approached the whole issue of DaWo like an amiable and oblivious Lulu, I did not relate to most of the ways he framed the issue at all, if they got rid of him because viewers simply did not relate to him, fine.
.....
He had the most moronic take on the issues and then at the end of it, he said, aw, we should go in anyway.
.....
what an ass.
.....
To me he was more undermining of any thoughtful discourse because he represented that all there was of anti-war was his kind of Lulus.
.....
snicker
"more trouble today for Clackamas County prosecutor Al French.
He's the Vietnam veteran who called John Kerry a liar in a political commercial, then admitted that he had never witnessed Kerry in combat.
Now, The Oregonian reports that he's been put on a 30-day paid leave.
That's because he may have lied about a long-ago extramarital affair with a secretary. "
Could one of you historians provide some perspective on this whole episode. Not only are we witnessing the marginalization of the current war opposition, but there seems to also be a retrospective debate on anti-war activism of the vietnam era. Is this country suffering from collective amnesia or was that entire experience unresolved? Someone recently said that america seems to be going through one of its psychotic phases that come once every two generations. As a new generation of 50-something alpha males takes the helm chest-thumping may be back in fashion. Restraint and reason will only follow when this mentality runs up against the reality of ten thousand dead warriors.
There was a whole Likudnik parallel process going on that loved the Lulus, they did not want any thoughtful anti-war discussion, thoughtfulness scared them silly, those are the only people who kissied up to Donahue, they knew he was doing their bidness, he was their credible lulu, he was the one who would help marginalize and polarize Dems into the minority party, so our side despised Donahue even though the Likudniks made smoochie woochie and doted over the doofus.
......
Even though we were right we were still wrong. Oy
Hey, we're NEVER more wrong than when we're right. When I protested the GOP for propping up Saddam way back whhen, I was wrong and un-American. When I protested Gulf Wars I and II I was wrong annd un-American too. Wolfowitz claimed that being against GOP policy towards Iraq in the 80s AND now indicated that "Hatred of America" was the only consistent value.
Personally, I thought that I was being consistent in not wanting to see my tax dollars used to murder innocent people, whether the killing was done by a brutal dictator or a cowardly dry drunk pipsqueak with delusions of adequacy. But evidently, Wolfowitz knows me better than I know myself...
I guess that's the problem with a lot of these people. They have some "liberal caricature" so firmly embossed in their consciousness that there's no need to check it against reality.
"There was, as I remember it, a fairly vigourous debate about the wisdom of invading Iraq ...."
Calling it a 'vigourous debate' implies reasonable discourse. A 'reasonable' position would have been to allow the UN inspectors to finish their work. But that was clearly not the intention of Bushco. I fear Weisberg's memory is a tad faulty.
jameswolcott - you just made another sale. I'm off to the bookstore.
The main anti-war process that has excellent credibility and resonance and a substantial mainstream and even majority position is the anti-war stance of people like Kerry and Wesley Clark, this is exactly why the Likudniks went berserk over them and bend themselves into a pretzel over them.
.....
They love lulu anti-war, they loved Deanie, they loved Kucinich, who they are skittered and scared of is the rational anti-war Kerry and Clark.
.....
They are scared of the rational and calm pro-wars too, but they are scaredest of the rational anti-wars like Kerry and Clark.
.....
Who the fuck is editing the Book Review? They commission Josh bloody Chafetz to write a clipjob hack piece on Tom Frank, and now this. There's just no connection with reality.
Donahue's show was ultimately a failure (even though it had okay ratings) because this stupid policy that the cable shows have that you have to present both sides of an issue...rather than interview people to find out exactly, in some depth, have to say.
Because of the right strategy of yelling, talking over, interrupting...and mischaractising what one's position is, these shows are like root canal.
Donahue's old shows used to be more informational because people had much better attention spans back in the old days. And the flaws in an argument could be discerned by close questioning, rather than gotcha on some arcane point.
Liberals will never do well in this format. At least they won't do well until they can encapulate complicated ideas into simplicist nuggets.
I think the only way to go is to counter program outside the Cable "news" ghetto....and not even bother to show up for these phony debates. In that way, the market will force a lot of these shows off the air, because truly, this tiny market can really only support one Fox.
Someone needs to tell Mr. Wiesburg that his conclusion is not supposed to totally contradict his premise. He begins his article with this statement: "A year ago, it was still possible to debate whether the phenomenon of Bush hating had taken on the virulent dimensions of Clinton loathing in the 1990's.... By any measure, Bush bashing is bigger."
But he concludes with this: "Why, after he has 'curtailed our freedoms, mortgaged our economy, savaged our environment and damaged our standing in the world,' as the jacket of Carter's book has it, does this president remain so hard for the people who condemn him in such terms to hate?
The best explanation, I think, is that Bush's critics esteem him too little to despise.... You can't despise a simpleton for his simplicity. You can't hate a man who isn't there."
So apparently, we have virulent loathing for Bush, but we can't quite bring ourselves to hate him. Since this is, by any measure, bigger than Clinton bashing was in the 1990's; Mr. Weisburg seems to be saying that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk virulently loathed Clinton but didn't actually dislike him. Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
Someone needs to tell Mr. Wiesburg that his conclusion is not supposed to totally contradict his premise. He begins his article with this statement: "A year ago, it was still possible to debate whether the phenomenon of Bush hating had taken on the virulent dimensions of Clinton loathing in the 1990's.... By any measure, Bush bashing is bigger."
But he concludes with this: "Why, after he has 'curtailed our freedoms, mortgaged our economy, savaged our environment and damaged our standing in the world,' as the jacket of Carter's book has it, does this president remain so hard for the people who condemn him in such terms to hate?
The best explanation, I think, is that Bush's critics esteem him too little to despise.... You can't despise a simpleton for his simplicity. You can't hate a man who isn't there."
So apparently, we have virulent loathing for Bush, but we can't quite bring ourselves to hate him. Since this is, by any measure, bigger than Clinton bashing was in the 1990's; Mr. Weisburg seems to be saying that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk virulently loathed Clinton but didn't actually dislike him. Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
The biggest prollem was never whether Saddam was a threat or not, everybody knew that knowing what we knew, we had to proceed as if he was a threat, that was the mainstream position, I’m not saying there weren’t people who screamed loudly that Saddam was a bunny wabbit or not a threat, in fact, half the time they were Likudniks screaming at Dems, oh yeah.
.....
The real issue is what to do about him and the Likudniks never wanted any other alternative than DaWo.
.....
They wanted The Clear Trumpet, because a) they wanted DaWo in the woist way and b) because they thought the polarization split would favor their Bushie.
......
this was always their predicate.
.....
there should be no discussions of alternatives to DaWo, because that one they would Lose.
.....
Of course, EVERYBODY in the Bush administration knew Saddam was no threat....why do you think they invaded Iraq?
Who the fuck is editing the Book Review?
Good question. The recent review of "Checkpoint" was a joke. I haven't read the book, and I have no opinion about it. The joker who reviewed it for the Times (I believe he's the Editor of that "liberal" New Republic) started in on the book, then veered off on a two-page rant about...something. I got into the second page and thought, "Isn't this supposed to be a review of, you know, the book?" Apparently not.
Dude, why does your family insist on reading the NYT first thing in the morning? It was just the other day we had to talk Mrs. A down from the ledge after a near-fatal encounter with the Sunday Paper of Record.
Cancel your subscription. You can still read the paper, but now you'll have to go out into the wide world to pick one up! Go shopping first, go to a coffee bar and write on your laptop. DO NOT crack the NYT at any time before noon.
If anyone is maintaining a list of all those who questioned the WMD thing prior to the war, add me to the list...
Does reading the NYTs still turn your hands black?
That is why I stopped reading it.
Why do you Dems still whine about the media among yourselves? Its been this way for at least a decade. Complaining actually does nothing to correct the problem
Jefe,
The reason Bush's approval rating has fallen has very little to do with his policies and everything to do with Americans feeling comfortable in their lives again and going back to their natural tendencies as a democrat or republican. We live in a 50% republican/libertarian, 50% democrat/socialist nation so it's logical that people will revert to what they are comfortable with as soon as they are able. That's probably Bush's biggest success since 9/11 and the main reason I think he's going to run away with the election. He's made america feel safe again, something many people doubted would ever happen after 9/11. It's sad that in most of your minds, you refuse to give Bush the proper credit for that that he deserves.
I could argue social policy, international policy all day, but there's no real point. The name calling on here is all I need to see to know that a deep, intelligent discourse on these issues is unwanted and probably feared. That's why you belittle them as you criticize the republican side of doing.
Well enjoy the day,
I'll pop on again to see if there are any intelligent statements coming out of this blog. Mind you, I'm not requesting well written dialogue, many of you are capable of that, but an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
Carpe Diem,
Mr. Jeffers: Don't care if you squall, just don't squeal. And don't confuse the reality of actually ending the war and actually making a peace, with the peace which is "at hand" cause of a "secret plan to end the war". With the help of the media and a credulous public, anything is possible (pay no attention to that man behind the curtain)!
NJ Rob,
Bush will win, not b/c America agrees with his position, but b/c Bush has the superior strategy and tactics and the Dems just simply whine to each other instead of playing hardball,like the Repubs.
but an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture
POT
"The reason Bush's approval rating has fallen has very little to do with his policies and everything to do with Americans feeling comfortable in their lives again and going back to their natural tendencies as a democrat or republican."
POT
"He's made america feel safe again,"
POT
"The name calling on here is all I need to see to know that a deep, intelligent discourse on these issues is unwanted and probably feared. That's why you belittle them as you criticize the republican side of doing."
POT
Nancy - That is exactly what Gore Vidal wrote in Dreaming War. We needed someplace in the ME to put permanent bases and we knew Saddam had no weapons because of the previous inspections.
I find it too depressing tho to believe it was really all about the oil. Ideals, even misguided, I can deal with. But thousands dead just to feed the BFEE?
Time to make another quilt.
GWPDA - Thanks for the link and the info. I just read the book 10 days or so ago and I was furious. That bunch considers welfare fraud to be doing "God's work" against the infidels, too, and my tax dollars have been going to support the multiple teenage wives (with their children) of corrupt old men, many of whom also consider committing incest to be "God's work." I'd like the see the whole goddamn bunch of them in prison. (Not the girls and their babies; the men who have ruined their lives.)
there was actually one guy who was in a position to know all about iraqi weapons programs. scott ritter. he probably knew more about it than anyone in the world, including the iraqis running the program.he was treated as a whackjob by the networks, who seemed to believe he was a "saddam apologist" of some kind, while various administration officials-both named and anonymous- were assumed to be reliable. even recently i heard some right wing radio host claim that ritter had been "discredited". discredited= 100% correct i guess in their world.
Yes, but the New York Times is ultraliberal, so your criticism is wholly without merit.
mondo dentro writes:
"The funny thing about that is the slightly pejorative connotation of "shrewd".
Yeah, sure, I'll go with that--Kaus is more "shrewd", as in he willingly embraces a form of intellectual dishonesty that advances his career in a way that Conason and Alterman would never do."
Bingo.
The networks as well as the cables all said they will give more coverage to the REpubs than the Dems. The Dems are so weak that tall they can do is sit and complain, if they even want to do that. Instead of choosing the obvious solution.
>That is exactly what Gore Vidal wrote
Gore has be prematurely right about so many things, one would imagine, those "in the know" would pay more attention to him.
Gore has been
been not be
been
Methinks I just posted that comment on the wrong thread.
Well, a warm-n-fuzzy blanket can make a toddler "feel" safe, too. But the blanket won't prevent said toddler from burning in a fire, being abducted, falling into a wading pool and drowning, being stung by a bee, bitten by a dog, getting fingers pinched in a door, ad infinitum.
NJ Rob's highest value in a leader seems to be his capacity to pacify and soothe the fears of the citizenry, not to actually propose and implement policies that really make the citizenry safer.
It's all so very paternalistic. We just can't handle the truth, so we need a prevaricating leadership that will spare our tender feelings by diverting our attention from everything that hasn't been done to correct the oversights which led to the worst attack ever in our history.
NJ Rob, attacking countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 may make you "feel" safer, but it just doesn't do it for those of us who are rational, thinking adults. We just want to see the promised but not delivered improvements in port security, sensitive site security, funding for first responders, and the like. The promise to do so was the warm-n-fuzzy blanket, but as adults, we know that a blanket isn't going to protect us in the real world.
The reason Bush's approval rating has fallen has very little to do with his policies and everything to do with Americans feeling comfortable in their lives again and going back to their natural tendencies as a democrat or republican.
...but an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
Touche.
Kaus is more "shrewd"
isn't "shrewd" a code word for "Jewish" (I have never that Sully was shrewd, either. He seems to be totally obvious.)
We live in a 50% republican/libertarian, 50% democrat[sic]/socialist nation
NJRob, do you really believe this shit?
I mean, really--I'd like to know if you really think this is an "analysis" of the electorate, or just more spin? Indeed, do you even know the difference between analysis and spin?
Come on. You can level with us.
NJRob:
an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
How true. That being the case, let's examine your own statements, and see whether they're the product of demonstrable facts or mere conjecture.
The reason Bush's approval rating has fallen has very little to do with his policies and everything to do with Americans feeling comfortable in their lives again and going back to their natural tendencies as a democrat or republican.
Proof, please? Until you provide it, I'll observe that Bush's constant raising of terror alerts at politically expedient times are hardly likely to make Americans feel safer. But at any rate, numerous experts (including Republicans) have concluded that the war made us LESS safe. If that's true, then even if Americans are feeling more safe, it's because they don't know things that they should.
My view: Bush's campaign is based ENTIRELY on engendering and intensifying fear, and his sinking poll numbers show what happens when people's emotions are perpetually overstimulated: apathy, fatalism, or resentment are just a few possible results.
He's made america feel safe again, something many people doubted would ever happen after 9/11.
Sheer conjecture. Care to show a poll, or any other data that show that Americans "feel safe again"?
It's sad that in most of your minds, you refuse to give Bush the proper credit for that that he deserves.
Here, we have conjecture based on mind-reading, stemming from wild logical leaps that don't by any means constitute a valid train of thought.
I could argue social policy, international policy all day, but there's no real point.
Assertion of facts not in evidence. I could prove that you fuck goats...I'm just busy right now.
The name calling on here is all I need to see to know that a deep, intelligent discourse on these issues is unwanted and probably feared.
Generalization, leading to conjecture, leading to false conclusions based on further conjecture about the mental state of others.
That's why you belittle them as you criticize the republican side of doing.
More conjecture, this time iin the form of triumphalist pop psychobabble.
Now what was that you said again?
an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
Physician, heal theyself.
Carpe Diem,
NJRob
Tena -
Here's another one: http://www.azcentral.com/news/ articles/0824polygamy-ON1 (take out the space obviously).
Within the last month has been opened the first 'secular' resource within walking distance of Colorado City - a state-owned building containing a branch of Child Protective Services, state police, the folks who deal with food stamps and child support - in other words, a place to go to where the 'wives' and girls won't be immediately thrown back to their predatory relatives.
Jennifer - well said. You know, ostriches think no one can see them when they stick their heads in the dirt, too. Feeling "safe" is purely subjective. Being safe is another story altogether. I wish more Americans could get the distinction through their thick heads.
Republicans, today's republicans anyway, know that what Americans see on TV and in the movies is more real to them than what happens right in front of their lyin' eyes. They have become masters of minipulating the verities and unities of the American melodrama. That combo trumps reality every time. Many years ago, when I needed a hair cut someone said to me: "you hippies always say; do your own thing. Well my thing is being a redneck cracker son-of-a-bitch who hates gooks-and-spics-and-niggers. And I'm gonna do my own thing, just like you hippies do"
They'll choke rather than admit it, but "if it feels good, do it" is the central conservative mantra (or meme).
Dear Atrios - You are the sane and honest one. The NYT is so insidious, the way it gives credibility in weirdly contorted ways to empowered institutions and people, in its arch sort of way. The lib-blogs are the lifeline of reason in a very kiss-the-ass-of-power dominated media world, good-old-NYT included.
I hate it when I forget to close tags! May as well fix some typos, too...
NJRob:
an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
How true. That being the case, let's examine your own statements, and see whether they're the product of demonstrable facts or mere conjecture.
The reason Bush's approval rating has fallen has very little to do with his policies and everything to do with Americans feeling comfortable in their lives again and going back to their natural tendencies as a democrat or republican.
Proof, please? Until you provide it, I'll observe that Bush's constant raising of terror alerts at politically expedient times is hardly likely to make Americans feel safer. But at any rate, numerous experts (including Republicans) have concluded that the war made us LESS safe. If that's true, then even if Americans are feeling more safe, it's because they don't know things that they should.
My view: Bush's campaign is based ENTIRELY on engendering and intensifying fear, and his sinking poll numbers show what happens when people's emotions are perpetually overstimulated: apathy, fatalism, or resentment are just a few possible results.
He's made america feel safe again, something many people doubted would ever happen after 9/11.
Sheer conjecture. Care to show a poll, or any other data that show that Americans "feel safe again"?
It's sad that in most of your minds, you refuse to give Bush the proper credit for that that he deserves.
Here, we have conjecture based on mind-reading, stemming from wild logical leaps that don't by any means constitute a valid train of thought.
I could argue social policy, international policy all day, but there's no real point.
Assertion of facts not in evidence. I could prove that you fuck goats...I'm just busy right now.
The name calling on here is all I need to see to know that a deep, intelligent discourse on these issues is unwanted and probably feared.
Generalization, leading to conjecture, leading to false conclusions based on further conjecture about the mental state of others.
That's why you belittle them as you criticize the republican side of doing.
More conjecture, this time in the form of triumphalist pop psychobabble.
Now what was that you said again?
an intelligent statement requires more than just conjecture, it requires facts, properly cited unless they are openly known, and a coherent train of thought.
Physician, heal thyself.
>NJRob, do you really believe this shit?
NJRob might best get a feel about where America is politically if he walked a few precincts, or staffed a table registering voters in the mall.
America is where it was 20 years ago, most people are firmly in the middle, with a tendency towards supporting 'liberal' things like the environment, good schools, decent affordable healthcare, and a living wage.
The ideological right still accounts for 25 person of the people. Same deal the "left"
At least that is what the research shows.
Oh, and NJRob?
Carpe Diem
Te futueo et equum tuum.
GWPDA - Well at least I can feel a bit better about those poor girls. I'd like to see their mothers and fathers in jail for selling them to those crazy old guys who all claim to be the "one mighty and strong" predicted in the Book of Mormon.
I know the official LDS position is that polygamy is no longer condoned, but unofficially, they have got to know what has been going on. Paging Orrin Hatch...
>The name calling on here is all I need to see to know that a deep, intelligent discourse on these issues is unwanted and probably feared.
I am curious where this one puts the bar for "deep, intelligent" discourse.
I would love one these guys to come over here and talk about Leo Strauss, but unfortunately none of them has ever heard of him, least of all has any understanding of him.
They seem to think Allan Bloom is da bomb.
The fact is deep, intelligent discourse is not found online, anywhere. But most especially on a fast moving board which uses haloscan.
>but unofficially, they have got to know what has been going on.
Oh, they know, but these 'fundamentalist' Mormons are so out there, dealing with them is like taking on a thousand Randy Weavers.
Yes, but the New York Times is ultraliberal, so your criticism is wholly without merit.
NJRob might best get a feel about where America is politically if he walked a few precincts, or staffed a table registering voters in the mall.
I wasn't so much thinking about the 2nd rate pollsterism of the statement, as I was about the limited understanding of ideology implicit in its construction. For example, there are many lefty libertarians, especially at sites like this one. I happen to be one.
The lack of understanding of what "Libertarian" means among most of those post-boomers who find it fashionable is laughable--for example, that it is philosophically closely related to anarchism, or that some variants (the "lefty" ones) are just as concerned about concentrations of corporate power as they are of state power.
Many people, including, I suspect, NJRob, use "libertarian" to mean simply "like a Republican, only younger and more hip!"
Anyone who is not a scheming crony capitalist and thinks Bush is "Libertarian" is ignorant or deluded. He's a right-wing big-government socialist, and as such uses a false populism to sell his otherwise indefensible positions.
America is where it was 20 years ago, most people are firmly in the middle...
I really don't believe this, just because I don't think this notion of "middle" really has any weight.
The middle of WHAT? The goal of any political movement should be to define the middle. The Middle should never be treated as some absolute, static configuration of values--that's the mistake in the DLC, GOP-Lite stance.
In an essentially two party system, the entire struggle involves the pushing and pulling of the middle--which is really nothing more than the interface between two poles.
People are capable of finding the "middle" in much more "radical" spaces than most people who use the notion really grasp. Look at the current middle--it's proto-fascistic in many ways. Yet, we live in a country that has, at the same time, embraced many of the values of espoused by the likes of Emma Goldman at the end of the 19th century.
Many people, including, I suspect, NJRob, use "libertarian" to mean simply "like a Republican, only younger and more hip!"
Exactly. Or more precisely, it mean "Republicans who are relatively comfortable using drugs and visiting prostitutes."
Nancy: There's very much an ideological component in the networks' decisions to produce nothing but wall-to-wall reactionary talk-shows. The beloved "Market" really has nothing to do with it. They're willing to lose money as long as the right message dominates. And they don't want competing viewpoints.
Back when he was sane, Christopher Hitchens wrote a couple of columns about his experiences appearing as an occassional guest on these shows, and he pretty much confirmed that the fuckers producing the gabfests of Novak and company were simply not interested in fair play. They were pretty open about it, too.
To me, the much bigger hilarity always was that the rethugniks thought they were being so clever, gosh, they really thought they were bamboozling the Dems right, shore, 31 primary wins later, djer still think that Primary Dem voters did not grok what was going on.
......
Like they thought that somehow Al Sharpton would for shore undermine our party, and it is really telling who is on whose side, the one person who gave the full Al Sharpton quote was paradoxically John McLoughlin, all the rethugniks little bunny wabbit Dem aiders and abettors only put the last line in, only John McLoughlin put in the entire quote where it has been Dems who got minorities civil rights act and it was Dems who got minorities voting rights act.
.....
That was a real quick and easy way to differentiate the little rethugnik helpers and abettors right then and there.
.....
Winky dinky right back at them. 
.
.....
Speaking of John McLaughlin: I know I'm the only person who watches his show, but he put forth a wacky-yet-plausible scenario last night:
1) Early October: Rove disappears
1) Mid October: WMD stockpile miraculously discovered in Iraq
Any other October surprise ideas? Remember, politics trumps all else in this White House.
HeavyJ - In a tinfoil moment, I wondered at Cheney's near-escape from that plane collision....you know they have to be looking at his negatives and realizing he's a drag on the ticket, but they can't replace him without admitting that they can make mistakes. What to do, what to do....
An odd comment: "is shrewd used in lieu of Jewish"?
When Alterman and Conason are deemed "not shrewd" in that very sentence, not.
Apart of other insanities, there is an RNC party line that is accepted by "fanatical moderates" that Busheviks were justified in thinking that Saddam was a huge threat because "everybody thought so". The president of the only remaining superpower has the resources to be the best informed person on the planet. If he is an amiable but well-meaning dunce, he can pick a head of National Security Council who would be intelligent and capable enough to be the best informed person on the planet.
Unfortunately, we have a "I do not give a damn" kind of a dunce.
And who cares if we should hate him or not? We have a wrecking ball swinging above the whole planet: US budget -- BOOM!!, ME peace process -- BOOM!!, enviroment -- BOOM!!, American credibility -- BOOM!!. It is really of secondary importance whether Bush is shrewd, amiable puppet, genius or whatever.
Back to "shrewd": it is not "shrewd" to actually care what will happen with the country and with the world; a "shrewd" commentator invents his/her "contrarian" position and shows his/her mental agility by marshalling arguments; the more ridiculous the claim, the higher skill level is exhibited.
That would be something that Friedman, Sullivan and Kaus share.
Mickey "Count Hackula" Kaus shrewd????? ROTFL!!!!!!!
Lemme see if I can channel some shrewd Mickey Kaus thinking:
"Have I told you how much I hate Al Gore? How much I really, really hate Al Gore? How much I really, really, really despise Al Gore???
"Oh sorry...it's 2004.
"Have I told you how much I hate John Kerry?..."
Jennifer- A midair collision to create a Bush-McCain ticket? I like it. Send Karl a memo.
I note, with amusement, that Weisberg doesn't include Hitchens in his list of "shrewder" commentators. Doesn't stop him from giving that sad and spiraling-into-dementia old drunk a soapbox because he apparently thinks it "adds an interesting voice" to Slate.
Slate is just lazy--the presiding editorial opinion is smug, semi-liberal contrarianism, which is the easiest and least substantial of intellectual positions. They take the CW, overturn it, and run a snarky piece on why everyone who might think that way is an unsophisticated rube. They have no intellectual consistency, or even identifiable editorial principles beyond the endless quest to appear cleverer-than-thou. They're the boutique/Ivy League version of the phenomenon Wollcott describes: they're attack poodles who neuter themselves with their own parochial self-infatuation and terror at being seen to be passionate, principled, or unironic.
Nancy Richardson - There's no doubt about how out there the fundie Mormons are. And I remember well when the Ervil clan went on a killing spree in Texas several years ago - killed 3 people in 5 minutes - 3 people who had run away from the incest and the polygamy. They are dangerous; but for fuck's sake, lots of people are dangerous. That doesn't mean they get to go on committing crimes unhindered.
I really suspect that the LDS has ignored the polygamists in the hopes that everyone else would, too. And I suspect that is at least partly behind why the federal government has let this go on for as long as it has - and it's been going on for years and years. Talk about a uniquely American brand of evil...
Slate is just lazy--the presiding editorial opinion is smug, semi-liberal contrarianism, which is the easiest and least substantial of intellectual positions.
Perfect, WendellGee. Succinct and apt.
I shall now steal it.
"smug, semi-liberal contrarianism..." AKA the Christopher Hitchens School of Journalism. The core curriculum consists of learning to write enough blather about something at $x dollars a word to buy another case of gin.
I didn't shed any tears for Donahue's demise and I'm shedding none now. He always seemed to me to be the kind of liberal right-wingers dreamed for. I remember when I heard he was coming back and I thought "Oh no, we're screwed . . ."
Amazing how they re-write history, isn't it?
Hecate
Even more amazing how they rewrite current events. In good time there should be a Dump the Times movement started. It is a complete fraud.
Many people, including, I suspect, NJRob, use "libertarian" to mean simply "like a Republican, only younger and more hip!"
Libertarians are Republicans afraid of getting busted for doing something kinky. Or Libertarians are Republicans who lack the disepline to hide the fact that they've never grown past the two-year-old sense of appertains to them. Appetency too.
>Nancy: There's very much an ideological component in the networks' decisions to produce nothing but wall-to-wall reactionary talk-shows. The beloved "Market" really has nothing to do with it. They're willing to lose money as long as the right message dominates. And they don't want competing viewpoints.
When the firewall between the various network news divisions and the sale divisions fell, that is when news became meaningless, and ideologues like Ailes started running programming.
Is it market driven, in the long run, yes. Because, they are going after a nitch market. And they will keep doing so until they get real competition from a "liberal" network.
The middle that CNN (and to a less extent MSNBC) used to occupy is now a blend of two markets, talk and news.
Talk radio's success was market driven. They are mapping out a small nitch market...and they wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't cheap, promotible and hugely profitable.
Libertarians are Republicans afraid of getting busted for doing something kinky. Or Libertarians are Republicans who lack the disepline to hide the fact that they've never grown past the two-year-old sense of what appertains to them. Appetency too.
EPT
OT: Hometown hero:
One of the 2,509 delegates to the Republican National Conventions has dropped out because of dissatisfaction with President Bush.
Congressional Quarterly reported Friday that after attending four previous conventions, Philadelphia's Jesse Walters was chosen as a delegate to this year's GOP convention in New York only to resign the position, saying he could not support Bush and expressing concern with the rightward move of the Republican Party.
Calling the decision to drop his position one of the five hardest he has had to make in his life, Walters said he plans to cast his first-ever vote for a Democrat for president in November.
Gee.
You mean General Electric actually wants to promote wars, so that it can sell more weaponry?
As though that made more money for them than ad's on Donahue did?!
SHOCKING!!!
Jennifer -
In a tinfoil moment, I wondered at Cheney's near-escape from that plane collision
I was wondering if Poppy Bush still has his pilot's license. It happened in Connecticut, afer all...
You know I'm semi-embarrassed to admit that, although I see him regularly lambasted on all my favorite blogs, I have absolutely no idea who this Mickey Kaus fellow is. I suppose I could find out but I'm not that interested.
Is he read/taken seriously by anyone?
Actually, it is quite easy to have lower ratings and be more profitable. If ad revenues exceed the cost of the show, the show is profitable. America's Funniest Home Videos anyone?
Donahue, I'm certain, did not come cheap. However, it is certain that because wingnuts watch cable TV news obsessively for any indication that Hillary and the Pope are scheming to bring about world government, they are the target demographic for the cable networks.
RobW - you just nailed it.
I would watch cable news obsessively to, if it was fucking remotely worth watching.
I'm always late to these threads....
If you're in NY and still looking for a march to join:
http://marchonthemedia.org/
RobW - According to this, AFV was rated #20 for August 16-22, 2004.
60 Minutes was #13.
Your point about cheap shows is fine.
But the reality is harsher:
War Sells, and if it doesn't, General Electric will program it harder.
War wasn't selling with everyone, so General Electric -- who makes money from war -- programmed it harder.
It's just that simple and sad.
Tena - certainly the LDS/Utah government is perfectly well aware of the polygamists and abuse taking place under the umbrella of religious freedom. When Governor One-Eyed Jack Williams of Arizona sent in the Guard and police to Short Creek - Colorado City now - he did so because the abuses had finally become impossible to overlook, at least on the Arizona side. The Utah side was less interested. Now, a generation later, the same situation exists, and by increments has worsened, but finally there is co-operation between AZ and Utah law enforcement. The two AGs now are trying to close the bolt holes that have been kept for the polygamist abusers. With the investigation now spreading up to Bountiful, to Texas and perhaps into Mexico, the fraud and abuse that that little group have created over the last century may end up being eliminated. But make no mistake - what has been going on in Colorado City has been known and well known.
Was I the only one who saw the award-winning documentary DEADLY DECEPTION?
Deadly Deception exposes the terrifying human and environmental cost of General Electric's nuclear weapons development...At highly secret facilities like Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in upstate New York, GE workers have been poisoned by radiation and asbestos...Downwind of the Hanford, Washington nuclear bomb plant, on a stretch of road known as "Death Mile," 27 of 28 families have suffered deadly cancers or birth defects. While GE managed the Hanford plant, GE knowingly released extensive amounts of radiation into the air and water...
Deadly Deception, released in 1991, depicts the GE Boycott Campaign, a grassroots movement calling on GE to get out of the nuclear weapons business. After years of pressure, on April 2, 1993, GE took a dramatic step out of nuclear weapons by selling its Aerospace Division, removing one of the most powerful forces influencing nuclear weapons policymaking.
INFACT responded by declaring victory and calling off the seven-year Boycott! INFACT's purpose is to stop life-threatening abuses of transnational corporations and increase their accountability to people all over the world. INFACT is now working to stop the abuses of the deadly tobacco industry.
Sadly, nuclear technology is not the only warprofiteering enterprise that GE has long been promoting.
When you read crap from Coulter or Novak, no matter how crazy their ramblings, at least you know where they are coming from. You are well aware that they are right-wing wackos doing their propaganda work. No surprises there.
What drives me bonkers (and most of us who have been monitoring media atrocities for years) are people like Jacob Weisberg and the fake lefties at Slate.com. I mean, is that magazine entirely devoted to trash Democrats and point the finger at people on the left? Seems that way. Who needs Fox News when we have Jacob Weisberg and the fine pro-Lieberman DINOs at Slate?
I just got home and saw Atrios' posts about this nasty, ugly, disturbing tirade by "Slate liberal" Jacob Weisberg against the left, against lefty writers, and anyone who criticizes Bush. Seriously. Here's the atrocity:
All the President's Critics
Weisberg peppers all his comments with false analogies, long debunked right-wing lies, and even flat out distortions. The premise of the article is that anti-Bush critics are worse, much worse than anti-Clinton critics were all through the 90s.
The whole article is a slap to anyone that had to endure the Clinton persecution of the 90s, and had to suffer criticism, insults, censorship and threats for daring to criticism the Boy King since t he theft of the 2000 election.
I strongly suggest you write the editors about this atrocity. This can't stand:
NY Times, Letters to the editor: letters@nytimes.comLet them know!
NY Times ombudsman: public@nytimes.com
GWPDA - I thought as much. It's obscene, really, that kidnapping, child molesting and massive amounts of welfare and other government fraud has been going on for as long as it has. I thought this country had a permanent bee in its bonnet over child molestation, real or imagined. I guess it doesn't count as much if the molesters are on a mission from god.
The entire LDS organization gives me the pip, frankly.
The CNN/FOX/whatnot continues to slip; I have never seen anything like it. I am an "old guy"... is my brain just suddenly losing it?? I don't want to believe that.
Robert Ingersoll
---
THE Bob Ingersoll?
Please, remind me how all this propaganda crap is better than Nazi Germany? And yes, I'm serious.
The premise of the article is that anti-Bush critics are worse, much worse than anti-Clinton critics were all through the 90s.
Julius Civitatus - 4:21 pm
It hasn't appeared on the horizon yet, but nearly all of my winger acquaintances have a fanatical hatred of Kerry. When questioned further there is no factual basis for it.
At least most of the Bush critics ("haters") have factual reasons for their position.
Anybody see the Lisa Myers piece on Mr. Schacte (former Rear Admiral and contributor to the Bushboy campaign)!
Schacte claims that he was there when Kerry suffered his first wound for which he received his first of three Purple Hearts. Schacte claims that Kerry didn't deserve it because it was the result of a misfired grenade launcher by Kerry and not of enemy fire.
Lisa (who must have and open invitation to the WH) presented Schacte well dressed in a jacket and a tie, in an elegant room with soft lighting, being interviewed by Lisa, herself!!!
A Mr. Zaladonis and another man claim to have been on the boat that day with Kerry and they don't remember Schacte being there and they remember that there was enemy fire and Kerry being nicked in the exchange. Mr. Zaladonis is presented in a head shot only, while he is outdoors, in an open shirt and he appears to be in a hurry to get somewhere and we don't even get to see who is asking him any questions.
Zaladonis disputes Schacte as does the other man that was on the boat with Kerry, but from the presentation by Lisa, you would swear that Schacte is most credible and Zaladonis is trailer trash.
Does anyone think that Lisa Myers has any shame?
Tena - one of the most interesting parts to this has been the way it has been creeping up into the Arizona political consciousness. Phoenix New Times' John Dougherty has been extremely prolific, and the result has been a good one so far - primarily, one of the lawyers who was prominent in suing the Catholic Church for molestation has now taken on a variety of suits against the Colorado City felons.
Clueless Joe:
Fascist are fascists and the Bushboy/Gooper smear-job they are doing on Kerry is right out of the Goebbels text book.
They control the media and they lie a lot. And that's all you need to know about Nazis or Goopers.
Check out Tom Tomorrow in your local free liberal weekly: he has a absolute smasckdown of this "oh...but...I just don't trust Kerry" crap.
I'm gritting my teeth but reading Suskind's book, "The Price of Loyalty," which is the story of Paul O'Neill's life and times in the Bushboy crackpot WH.
This book reveals much about Bushboy while he is engaged with his chief subordinates, Powell, Rummy & Cheneychins.
O'Neill is repeatedly shocked and appalled at Bushboy's ignorance, intransigence and ideological indifference or hostile to any views that don't comport with his own.
This book reveals Bushboy as that most dangerous of all fools, one who doesn't care about facts, or possible damage or harm to other human beings, so long as he either believes he is doing the right thing or provided he has stated an ideological position from which he will not budge.
This book demonstrates that the catastrophes that have occurred on the Bushboy watch (Iraq, record deficits, the "Medicare bill") were not accidents or exceptional occurrences, they flow directly from what O'Neill refers to as "flawed process."
Indeed, that is what Bushboy is: a living, breathing, flawed process.
GWPDA - wow. thanks for that link - I can't believe the hand-wringing and the "it's a difficult situation" that has been going on. Jesus christ on a candy apple, it isn't difficult at all, it's fucking illegal. Dougherty gets it just right in the piece you linked to.
I swear there is more David Koresh caliber religious insanity in this country than in any 5 other countries combined. It's discouraging, really. And one of our main exports apparently is the LDS. How that has happened totally escapes my ability to reason - what do people see in the Mormons that makes them want to join them? Sometimes I wish I could move to another planet.
The media was terrible and discriminatory toward Al Gore but they are savaging Kerry.
Their temerity with Gore was probably tempered by the fact that Gore was the presumed would-be winner of the 2000 election and Bushboy was the dimwitted but "amiable" governor from Texas.
Since Bushboy is now the appointed POTUS and Kerry's victory is in doubt, the press chooses to exercise more viciousness and venality than in the 2000 election.
If the press did their job, the American people would know that Bushboy is not only manifestly unfit to be president, but he is a menace to America and the world and four more years will cause serious devastation at home and abroad.
But Tena, the Mormons are so cleancut and straightforward and decent! Goodness sakes, such nice boys and girls. Pfui. Or, as my cadre, the United Presbyterians (along with the Methodists and the Congregationalists) declared, you might prefer to consider them "an heretical sect." Oh, those Presbyterians, so damned intolerant.
What's going on up in the Arizona Strip is a little bit of insanity - right this minute my favorite bit has been this declaration:
More questions about use of tax dollars in polygamy community
Joseph A. Reaves
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 25, 2004 05:35 PM
Already facing questions about how they spent state money, officials in charge of public schools in the nation's largest polygamous community want to raise another $1.5 million through a special bond election this fall.
The governing board of the Colorado City Unified School District passed a resolution three weeks ago authorizing the Nov. 2 special bond election.
The measure would give wide spending discretion to the school board, which already is being audited by the state for questionable financial policies, including the purchase of a $220,000 private airplane.
"Any district that wants to go ahead with a bond election should at least be in fiscally good standing with the State Department of Education and the auditor general," said Mike File, superintendent of Mohave County schools and a longtime critic of the Colorado City school district.
"These guys certainly are not anywhere close to being in good fiscal standing." *AZ Republic, 25/8/04
Big round of applause for Wendell Gee
great post!
Tena - Do you watch South Park? If not, you need to start - now. They did a ruthless smackdown on LDS in one episode.
knock knock
power to some people- right on!
Dear Jacob Weissberg:
Good boy! That's a good moderate. Now roll over boy! Oh, you're such a good boy!
In addition to what Atrios highlighted, here's what makes me want to blow chunks all over my keyboard: all these Slate-style little pussies who are so eager to show that they're just like the popular guys -- that they would really, really like George Bush in person. Why he'd be their bestest buddy!
That's exactly the problem with weasels like Weissberg. They actually like assholes. Oh well, you know what they say: like attracts like.
South Park is extremely weak lately--they (and the LDS episode was symptopmatic of this, as is the forthcoming puppet movie) decide that the really edgu thing is to contradict the truth and help spread the lies of wealthy comfortable parasites, as in their boring and absurd critique of anti-smoking groups (partially premised on the dangerous lie that it hurts no one to share a room with smoke). On the other hand, they have had as many hits as misses (although their scat seems to work against more than for: the Mel Gibson/Passion episode in particular is a great argument for censorship, since its scatological content could literally be excised without affecting anything). The episode on Christian Rock is dead on (Cartman creates best-selling Christrian rock by ripping off sleazy seventies Rick James-esque incense groove, replacing the word "baby" or "lover" with "Jesus"). Also the masturbation/Golum bit, the episode on Pokemon (of course a Japanese takeover plot) and the video game episode (featuring a marijuana-addicted sentient super-towel) are fine.
What it boils down to is that Trey and Matt are not that bright. Often they do not seem to grasp what would be satirically arch-they are clever in the worst sense and they can be loud and disgusting (just like anyone else can be), but their reversals never get past "perhaps it is you who are the mutants". In this naive misguided "balance" they are as willing to endorse as to condemn anyone for anything, apparently hoping to palm off laziness and willful ignorance as aloofness and objectivity (never heard of this before have we?).
Jennifer - I watch it sporadically. I don't watch much television really; up here I got rid of the two that were here when I got the place and in Dallas Mr. Tena has absolute sovereignty over the remote and I don't care enough to fight over what gets watched.
I'd love to see the take-down, however.
Interesting side note: the sister of one of the South Park originators lives here in Lake City. I know her well. She says she still can't believe that her brother is as famous as he is. I can attest that he makes a mean peach cobbler. His sister owns a tiny little natural grocery store and catering/lunch business here with another woman. When he was visiting last year he made a peach cobbler they sold in the place. I got a piece, but I never got to meet him.
guess who else got frozen out? remember pat caddel who used to be a fixture on hardball? i happened to run across a channel that usually airs sacramento legislative affairs, but this time had a round table discussion group which included pat caddel, where he said hardball producers refused to allow him on the show because he opposed the war. guess he outlived his usefulness when they only wanted him for tearing down dems.
I'm with Weissberg. I want to jump on the love train in praise of our "greatest generation" that fought WWII, but I can't quite get behind that bunch of Hitler haters. Sure Hitler was bad and stuff but the Allies were such haters. Its good to fight for justice and all, but you shouldn't allow yourelf to be turned into a hater. I really hate that.
k & y - I don't see it that way. I think they just take knocks at everyone. I actually think they're somewhat on target with the anti-smoking thing, because yes, we all know it's bad for you, but it's moved beyond a public health crusade into the territory of "we can tell you what to do, and so we will." Though granted it was not one of their better episodes.
I thought the anime ninja episode was perhaps the best, or at least one of the funniest, ever.
Finally, I don't think Matt and Trey have ever pretended - or intended - to present anything other than what they, personally, think is funny. I don't always agree that it is either, but I'm not into analyzing it beyond that.
I want to jump on the love train in praise of our "greatest generation" that fought WWII, but I can't quite get behind that bunch of Hitler haters.
Besides, they were all a bunch of New Deal liberals.
Stinkin commies.
But they often admit that they, well, kinda like the guy personally.
Sorry, Bush IS a horrible peron.
k & y - I haven't watched enough Southpark to make any kind of comment about the content. But I have to say this: some anti-smoking groups are just as self-righteous and annoying as some fundie christians are. Everyone gets it, and has gotten it for lo these many years now. Time for everyone to back the fuck off. The nonsmokers have gotten their way - there is no smoking in any public place in this country any more. So they can quit whining. Except they don't. I find it very tiresome.
jim - Bush is a horrible person - you couldn't be more right. I wouldn't want to spend 5 seconds with him beyond the 15 minutes I'd like to be locked in a room alone with him to kick the living daylights out of the little pissant. He's a mean, nasty, stupid little cretin with an over-inflated sense of entitlement.
People who think he's a regular guy need their brains douched.
> Sure Hitler was bad and stuff but the Allies were such haters. Its good to fight for justice and all, but you shouldn't allow yourelf to be turned into a hater. I really hate that.
Wild-Eyed Fool, that was AWESOME! I splurted Gatorade all over the keyboard, though.
Man, that article by Jacob Wussberg ruined my day...
Hey, I think South park can be funny as hell, and I've laughed until my sides ached at their skewering of many liberal sacred cows. But I'm with k&y in their assessment. Parker and Stone are reactionary precisely because they are essentially pop nihilists.
I defy anyone to find any value in their work other than a sort of adolescent "fuck you" to everyone who they view as an authority figure, which is pretty much anyone who might question their right to be totally self-absorbed.
So, what makes that reactionary? Because there is nothing more valuable to the rightist forces now dominant than the smug "it's all bullshit" attitude that is very effectively promoted to the youth demographic.
Trendy nihilism for a teen is a gateway drug to adult rightism.
> Sure Hitler was bad and stuff but the Allies were such haters. Its good to fight for justice and all, but you shouldn't allow yourelf to be turned into a hater. I really hate that.
Wild-Eyed Fool, that was AWESOME! I splurted Gatorade all over the keyboard, though.
Man, that article by Jacob Wussberg ruined my day...
Tena - you're a grown-up, you know what's important.
GET THE COBBLER RECEIPT DAMMIT, GET IT NOW.
Thank you.
I also have to point out that these are the dog days of summer and so, I'm going to go back to the pool and read murder mysteries. I maintain my credentials by making sure to only read those by reputable lefties, currently Fred Harris.
Get that recipe Tena. Then, share.
mondo dentro - I can't ever remember if my friend here is sister to Matt or Trey - like I said, I never met her brother when he was in town. But I know her well and I know she absolutely loathes Bush, the Iraq War, the right, Republicans, etc. etc. etc. I have a hard time envisioning either Matt or Trey being aligned with the right.
Sometimes a banana is just a banana. Sometimes subversive is just subversive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I liked South Park at first, but Parker and Stone shot their wad pretty early; it wasn't long before the show's humor consisted of nothing but "politically incorrect" shock value for its own sake. Including the episode where they parodied the 2000 elections, in which the side that lost (i.e. the Democrats) were portrayed as a bunch of sore-loser crybabies making trouble just because they didn't win. And the one where the boys took on the thuggish business practices of the Starbucks corporation...except that they were on Starbucks' side. And didn't they do one where liberals were rounding up people who disagreed with them and put them in concentration camps?
Of course they parody the Republicans as well: Witness "That's My Bush", where the dead-eyed little sociopathic shitstain currently occupying the White House is portrayed as a lovable boob who means well, but can't help it that he's so likably dim-witted. Why, he's adorably naughty!
Well, Tena, siblings can be very different one from the other. People who know me are surprised at my conservative evangelical Republican brother.
Obviously, I don't know the people. That's just my interpretation of their work.
Spooked wrote: "Hey, there is no "truth". History, even recent history, is all spin."
What complete and utter rubbish.
For the record, most of the debate did involve conceding the point of Iraqi WMD (of whatever extent), since there was no certain knowledge of such, or its absence.
Instead, the debate revolved mainly around why we would rush to war, while the inspectors were given free reign to reduce our lack of information in regards to the WMD, and thus the threat, especially when revelations of plagiarized and forged evidence being promoted as part of the crux of our case were ongoing.
Also, there were those prescient folks debating the merits of the resulting occupation, and weighing this against the perceived threat, even granting the WMD argument (always granting a 'remnant' or 'something').
The reason why the smart debaters focused on this is because of the uncertainty. Especially with our mass media, if you base your case on the absence of WMD, then the discovery of WMD, to whatever extent, could be used to discredit you in the demagoguic media space.
To this day, the debate has clearly been won, on our side, those of us who opposed the war, irregardless of the status or state of WMD. That there is no WMD only adds insult to the pro-war debaters' injury, and in a reasonable world would lead to the immediate discrediting of the whole pro-war crowd accompanied with mass resignations.
Many of us hinted there were probably no WMD (but noone had the privilege to categorically state such), but the "there was no WMD" was not the most strategic debating position to take during the pre-war moment.
There were far too many other openings to take, that were available, that allowed for conceding a minimal WMD existence while still skewering the pro-war folks. And, to my knowledge, most doubters of the WMD, if they were truly honest with themselves, would probably admit that their position was a fluctuating one between no WMD (but obviously not certainty) and no signifigant or meaningful WMD we needed to worry about.
Pardon me for talking about the original post... but it is rarely spoken that if substantial quantities of WMDs had actually existed it was just as moronic to do what Bush did. Vast #s of WMDs would have killed an exponentially higher number of Americans and Iraqis, and the stupidity of not pursuing diplomatic removal of them would would have been the issue Bush now faces. Like the proverbial drunk surviving a crash, Bush got lucky. But his gain is America's loss, exactly as happened with 9-11. An improved perspective that Bush gains when America loses would be a desirable framing of election issues.
Though, this ought not be taken as a criticism of Atrios. I love this post, and am only taking exception (to a degree) with the first point.
I know for a fact that Atrios would not have staked his reputation on categorically stating, without question, and without doubt, and without a hint of hedging, that Iraq had no remnant of WMD (as an existential claim rather than that there is no evidence of WMD), without the information backing such a claim, for such would be similar to stating a belief in God, absent evidence, and Atrios is a good and critical atheist.
We all must attempt to fit the facts to patterns of belief. There was no reason to believe that Saddam has WMD that could threaten us. There was also no reason to be sure he didn't have some kind of WMD program, or capability, to whatever extent, though there was plenty to reason to suspect.
Either way, the point of whether Saddam had any WMD was and is largely irrelevant for the debate and action, but definitely a greater point of embarassment for the Bush Administration and pro-war loyalists.
Jimm..my post went up at the same time as yours and is not a comment on your post, which I had not seen.
mondo - fair enough, and like I said earlier, I haven't watched enough Southpark, lately anyway, to speak to the work. And truly, siblings differ. I just got the impression from my friend that she and her brother were pretty close and pretty much in agreement.
But really, I shouldn't go any further than saying that I haven't watched the show in quite a long time. I only brought up the connection in the first place as a little side comment to Jennifer's recommending that I watch it.
No worries bwise. I figured you were referring to prior posts, since I was referencing Atrios' post.
Peace.
Mickey Kaus is about as shrewd as a monkey's butt.
Weisberg is just looking out for his fellow hacks.
STILL UNREPORTED: THE PAY-OFF IN BUSH AIR GUARD FIX
Saturday, August 28, 2004
by Greg Palast
In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men's sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the 'champagne' unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.
This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."
THE PAY-OFF
That's far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth its weight in gold ? or, more precisely, there?s a value in keeping the info secret.
Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our President's slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a multi-billion dollar contract for a client. That's the information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television.
Here's what happened. Just after Bush's election, Barnes' client GTech Corp., due to allegations of corruption, was about to lose its license to print money: its contract to run the Texas state lottery. Barnes, says the Justice Department document, made a call to the newly elected governor's office and saved GTech's state contract.
The letter said, "Governor Bush ... made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid [the GTech lottery contract] because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the '94 campaign."
In that close race, Bush denied the fix was in to keep him out of 'Nam, and the US media stopped asking questions. What did the victorious Governor Bush's office do for Barnes? According to the tipster, "Barnes agreed never to confirm the story [of the draft dodging] and the governor talked to the chair of the lottery two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid."
And so it came to pass that the governor's commission reversed itself and gave GTech the billion dollar deal without a bid.
The happy client paid Barnes, the keeper of Governor Bush's secret, a fee of over $23 million. Barnes, not surprisingly, denies that Bush took care of his client in return for Barnes' silence. However, confronted with the evidence, the former Lt. Governor now admits to helping the young George stay out of Vietnam.
Take a look at the letter yourself - with information we confirmed with other sources - at http://www.gregpalast.com/ulf/do...dgeblanked.jpg)
.
Frankly, I don't care if President Bush cow
Frankly, I don't care if President Bush cowered and ran from Vietnam. I sure as hell didn't volunteer ... but then, my daddy didn't send someone else in my place. And I don't march around aircraft carriers with parachute clips around my gonads talking about war and sacrifice.
More important, I haven't made any pay-offs to silence those who could change my image from war hero to war zero.
"TIME WARNER WON'T LET US AIR THIS"
By the way: I first reported this story in 1999, including the evidence of payback, in The Observer of London. US media closed its eyes. Then I put the story on British television last year in the one-hour report, "Bush Family Fortunes." American networks turned down BBC's offer to run it in the USA. "Wonderful film," one executive told me, "but Time Warner is not going to let us put this on the air." However, US networks will take cash for advertisements calling Kerry a Vietnam coward.
The good news is, until Patriot Act 3 kicks in, they can't stop us selling the film to you directly. The updated version of "Bush Family Fortunes," with the full story you still can't see on your boob tube, will be released next month in DVD. See a preview at http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm
I'm just going to echo what Olaf said above. Before the war, there were just a handful of people really in position to know the facts. Only one, Scott Ritter, has been proven to be absolutely correct. Yet now, as before the invasion, he is virtually persona non grata in the corporate media.
I too must comment on:
"Kaus is "shrewder" than Conason or Alterman?"
Yes the most shrewd thing one can do as a writter from the left- something Kaus claims over and over to be- is continue to tell one bad thing after another about KERRY! Who cares that the environment is going to hell, almost 1,000 troops have died for a war that was built on lies, 10 of thousands of Iraqies have died for the same war, there are millions more poor people and people with out insurance?... I mean "shrewd" people care about Kerry's latest HAIRCUT and how he is a SNOB, and how stupid he looks on a bike! Really important things.
If Slate didn't have Kaplan or Lithwick the place would be a total waste.......
More Kaus channeling: "Have I mentioned recently how much I hate Paul Krugman? (Not to mention anybody else who's obviously smarter than I am and actually knows what he's talking about?) He's mean! He compared me to a rhinocerous!"
wtfwjd: Kaus is a blogger at Slate. Claims to be an neoliberal or perhaps a moderate. He's childish, ignorant, and lazy. There are hundreds of bloggers on the web, across the political spectrum, who are smarter, more interesting, harder working, and have better journalistic ethics. The only plausible explanation for his employment at Slate is cronyism -- he's one of the old New Republic crowd, I believe. He's the reason I no longer read Slate: I decided that I couldn't trust the editorial standards of a publication that employs him, even if some people I like do write for them. I would rather read a thoughtful conservative any day of the week.
Sometimes reading the newspaper is like tripping on bad acid: the hallucinations are sharp and clear, but they're still nightmarish and unlike anything you experience normally.
Weisberg eats shit and is full of shit.
Who will the next media whore cocksucker/idiot that should be exposed and skewered be?
So many media pieces of shit, so little time . . . .
Fuck 'em all.
Got Attack Poodles from my library and read it in one sitting. It's great.
To hear Friedman, Sullivan, and Kaus described as shrewder commentators than anybody is a joke. Wolcott provides plenty of evidence of that. As if we didn't know already.
The irony is that Wolcott was, like Jon Stewart, an equal opportunity basher. These jerks don't understand that if you're going to have a one-party, one POV culture then the satire and anger are going to be directed... guess where? Or I suppose Wolcott should have written a book about, uh, Alan Colmes? The two times Joe Conason has shown up on cable TV?
The regular guy stuff is crap. Yeah, he's a mediocre (at best) guy, but let's get real: he's the frat punk who puked on your date. He's the roommate who never helped clean the house but littered it with beer cans and bong dregs. He's the guy that you saw at your 10 year reunion who was still unemployed, still living off Daddy, still an obnoxious drunk. He's the guy that you saw at your 20 year reunion in the same condition. He's the guy who laughed just had way too much fun making fun of homely chicks.
He's the regular guy that no one trusted but certain weak characters sucked up to because his Daddy was rich and connected.
Do you hate that guy? Personally, I never had the time to hate guys like this. But they weren't regular in my way of thinking and I sure didn't want to hang with them.
I don't hate Bush. I just want him to stop leaving his mess all over the country and to stop talking trash to my country's friends before it doesn't have any.
I wish these liberal hawks would come out and admit the real reason they supported the Iraqi war, rather than push the fantasy it was supposed to bring Western Democracy to the Middle East.
Nano, since they won't do it, I'll do it for them:
1) They bought into the idea, despite all the evidence to the contrary (not to mention the historical example provided by Iran in 1977) that the mere act of toppling a secular dictator of a Muslim country with no experience of democratic reforms would automatically and immediately turn said country into a flourishing, pro-US, pro-Israel democracy.
2) They didn't want to look like weenies, compared to the strong and manly Republicans. A few tens of thousands dead, and two ruined nations (Iraq's -- and ours) is but a small price to pay for not having Tim Russert pick on you on Meet the Press.
Weisberg's just another dual-loyalty neocon, spewing out the propaganda. Nothing new to see here...
Mondo said, "So, what makes that reactionary? Because there is nothing more valuable to the rightist forces now dominant than the smug "it's all bullshit" attitude that is very effectively promoted to the youth demographic. Trendy nihilism for a teen is a gateway drug to adult rightism."
Very astute observation.
Moore, Alterman, et alia were certainly big in the news at that time, and certainly have had ample opportunity to express their views. As regards Donahue, the fact that a plausible other explanation exist -- that he had poor ratings -- makes other suggestions, er, highly speculative. The convoluted secret workings you have to believe in to uphold the liberal mantras...
Hey, here's a cool secret: Paul McCartney's really dead. Lennon says "I buried Paul" at the end of..."
Try to imagine them giving Gary Condit a show. Both guys are remarkably similar in that they both left Congress after a young, healthy woman working in their offices died under extremely mysterious and nefarious circumstances. - Stinky
< shallow 'undecided' voter >
But Condit's creepy and his name sounds like condom.
While Scarborough reminds me of Chandler Bing. And Chandler Bing wouldn't kill anyone, would he?
< / shallow 'undecided' voter >
It's not so much the right-wing hosts who are the problem as it is that they either won't invite competent liberal spokesmen on their shows, or there are no competent liberal spokesman.
It is the former; and it's more general. It's amazing how the wingnuts always manage to find the worst stereotype of anything when they invite someone to their show. If they have a liberal on, it's always an "aging hippy liberal douche" (cf. South Park) or a Joe Lieberman type. If they have a Jewish person on, it's always some whiny sniveler. Etc.
I always find it amazing how they get these people from central casting.
But maybe it does reflect reality. For example, the Democratic primary candidates, from Dean to Kerry, etc., all were straight from central casting too.
We need to get some new casting directors if we liberals want to succeed.
I just went to Barnes & Noble and skimmed through a copy of Attack Poodles. One thing that made me laugh my ass off was his comparison of the bobblehead shows to The Sammy Maudlin Show on SCTV. Anyone old enough to remember this skit?
Bobby Bitman - How are ya!
Tena:
what do people see in the Mormons that makes them want to join them?
Oh, just the promise of immortal conjugal bliss with your multiple wives.
Almost as good as that virgins every night for eternity stuff.
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