"Elder statesman...steadfast...bulletproof integrity and sterling qualifications...razor-sharp intellect and clever turns of phrase...renowned...[h]e doesn't do politics...[h]e does law".
You might think that's a description of a saint or a Founding Father but really it's just the Washington Post publicly fellating Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
And people in the "news" business wonder why they're less popular than ptomaine poisoning.
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The WaPo's resident idiot (well, one of them anyway) conducts a video interview with an astrologer on the subject of the presidential election.
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Apparently, the powers-that-be at the Washington Post thought this was clever:
When General Motors announced that it would subject its Hummer division to what in the automotive business is known as a "review," you could hear the tree huggers, the unreconstructed hippies, the postmodern Greens, Al Gore's organic peanut gallery, every single customer at the Pasadena Whole Foods and the United Prius Owners of America shove aside their alfalfa sprouts and commence clapping.
It doesn't improve any after that.
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Fred Hiatt's Washington Post.
For a necessary corrective see Glenn Greenwald.
And it takes a Republican to encapsulate what happened yesterday:
“I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, who led the negotiations.
It's not a question of the Democrats being spineless but of just how spineless they are.
Thanks again, Steny and Jay and Nancy and Harry.
Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.- President Harry S Truman
After Dick Gephart betrayed the majority of House Democrats and plotted with Bush, Cheney and some Blue Dogs to thwart the will of the majority and rubber stamp Bush’s decision to attack and occupy Iraq, he was forced out of his role as Democratic Leader. Steny Hoyer deserves the exact same fate.
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The WaPo asks five "opinion leaders" (Tony "The Teeth" Robbins is an "opinion leader"?) the question, "What Should Hillary Do Now?" The vile Sally Quinn responds:
Now would be the perfect time for [Hillary] to find herself, to decide what she really wants. Give up the roar of the crowds, the banners and the balloons, the marching bands, the begging for autographs. Give up the naked ambition, the lust for power. Is it possible that she wants those things because she thinks she should?The only way for her to gather this kind of insight would be for her to go away for a while. Be alone. Be silent. Be with herself. There is a wonderful retreat called Bhavana Society in West Virginia that would be the perfect place. Its founder, Bhante Gunaratana, talks in his book "Mindfulness" about the power of concentration or tranquility when one's mind is brought to rest and "a deep calm pervades the body." "The meditator focuses his or her mind on a certain item, such as a prayer, a chant, a candle flame, or a religious image, and excludes all other thoughts and perceptions from his or her conciousness." Self awareness is the goal. Hillary talks quite openly about her faith and how it comforts her. This would be a perfect time for her to explore her faith, to delve more deeply into it.
I truly believe she would come out of an experience like that a happier, more authentic and grounded person; her own person, which she has never really had the opportunity to be. Perhaps she could go off to Africa and India and work with AIDS victims. Or maybe the right thing for her to do is to stay in the Senate and try to improve life for those in this country. Whatever it is, it must be something that gives her peace and fulfillment. Something she clearly has yet to attain.
In other words, Quinn wants Hillary to get out of "her" town.
Her town?
Yes, her town:
But this particular community happens to be in the nation's capital. And the people in it are the so-called Beltway Insiders -- the high-level members of Congress, policymakers, lawyers, military brass, diplomats and journalists who have a proprietary interest in Washington and identify with it.They call the capital city their "town."
And their town has been turned upside down [by the Clintons].
[...]
THIS IS THEIR HOME. This is where they spend their lives, raise their families, participate in community activities, take pride in their surroundings. They feel Washington has been brought into disrepute by the actions of the president.
[...]
"He came in here and he trashed the place," says Washington Post columnist David Broder, "and it's not his place."
[...]
"This is our town," says Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Democrat to forcefully condemn the president's behavior. "We spend our lives involved in talking about, dealing with, working in government. It has reminded everybody what matters to them. You are embarrassed about what Bill Clinton's behavior says about the White House, the presidency, the government in general."
[...]
Even those who have to deal with or publicly support the administration do so grudgingly. They say that regardless of whether his fortunes improve, Bill Clinton has essentially lost the Washington Establishment for good.
So, you see, aside from a bad case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome Ol' Sally is one who gets to determine who is a Kool Kid and who should be run out of town.
And the irony is thick considering that Quinn quite literally slept her way to the top. Yes, this is someone who's opinion is so very important.
(Aside from Quinn and Robbins the other three "opinion leaders" are John Zogby, Deepak Chopra (!), and Ed Koch. Fred Hiatt has an odd definition of the term.)
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Kevin's right. The WaPo's usage is just plain strange:
...the "Net roots"..."The fact is, the Net roots cannot win elections by ourselves [...]"
And just to confuse things further let's throw in a hyphen:
...a former high school teacher who became a Net-roots activist [...]
I know that this isn't the most important thing out there but does the WaPo not employ copy editors?
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Why is Loyal Bushie™ Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson writing for the Washington Post?
Liberal media, my ass.
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I generally like the WaPo's Eugene Robinson but this is ridiculous:
Warning: This is a column about Paris Hilton. Those who are trying to ignore the travails of the famous-for-being-famous hotel heiress might want to avert their eyes. The rest of you, join me in honorable surrender. We have no choice but to pay attention.
Who's this "we" you speak of?
(And, yes, I read the whole column just to see if Robinson was using this to make a worthwhile point. He didn't.)
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Who knew what when?
Yesterday, promised that her testimony could not be used against her in a criminal prosecution, Monica M. Goodling, former senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, admitted to doing exactly that as she screened applicants for prosecutorial positions. "I know I took political considerations into account on some occasions . . . I know I crossed the line," Ms. Goodling said. This was, for the reasons Mr. Comey suggested, a sad moment for anyone who cares about the Justice Department.It was sad, as well, that so many Republican committee members chose to ignore this ugly fact and heap praise on Ms. Goodling. "I think you have . . . shown people who are here. . . . why people in the Justice Department thought you were worthy of your job," said Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.). "Millions of Americans now know a lot more about you, and they're proud to have somebody like you serving in government," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) Violating the law against politicizing the civil service is no grounds for pride.
[...]
In pushing prosecutors to investigate voter fraud and dumping ones who didn't perform, was the White House pursuing a legitimate prosecutorial priority or an avenue of partisan gain? The complaints from lawmakers that President Bush passed on to Mr. Gonzales and the similar involvement of Mr. Rove contain more than a whiff of political self-interest. That is a legitimate and important area for congressional inquiry, and it is looking increasingly as if the answers are to be found at the White House.
One of the most painful parts of listening to Monica's testimony yesterday were the House Republicans. One used his five minutes to attack John Murtha, who, of course, wasn't the subject of the hearing. And, as the WaPo notes, the rest were content to heap praise on our dear little Monica. In comparison, the Senate Repubs sound like veritable Ciceros.
And we know, even if we can't prove it yet, that this and other instances of corruption lead directly to the top. Former Republican Senator Howard Baker's famous question applies here: What did the president know and when did he know it?
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Our favorite rightwing editorial page editor seems to have lost the Faith:
No one is asking Mr. Bush to talk about classified information, and no one is discounting the terrorist threat. But there is a serious question here about how far Mr. Bush went to pressure his lawyers to implement his view of the law. There is an even more serious question about the president's willingness, that effort having failed, to go beyond the bounds of what his own Justice Department found permissible.[...]
"And so we will put in place programs to protect the American people that honor the civil liberties of our people, and programs that we constantly brief to Congress," Mr. Bush assured the country yesterday, as he brushed off requests for a more detailed account. But this is exactly the point of contention. The administration, it appears from Mr. Comey's testimony, was willing to go forward, against legal advice, with a program that the Justice Department had concluded did not "honor the civil liberties of our people." Nor is it clear that Congress was adequately informed. The president would like to make this unpleasant controversy disappear behind the national security curtain. That cannot be allowed to happen.
If George has lost the Washington Post editorial board then maybe the worm truly has turned.
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The latest addition to the WaPo's ever expanding stable of rightwing columinists, former Bush speechwriter Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson, writes today about Tony Blair. It's pretty much the expected puffery for a Loyal Bushie from another Loyal Bushie. But this part caught my eye:
Predicting a legacy is a tricky thing, but Blair's is clear. Thirty years ago, Harvard political theorist Harvey Mansfield mockingly asked, "Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?" By this high standard, Tony Blair is a liberal.
Harvey Mansfield...Harvey Mansfield...Oh! Now I remember! Just two weeks ago Mansfield was writing in favor of dictatorship:
Now the rule of law has two defects, each of which suggests the need for one-man rule. The first is that law is always imperfect by being universal, thus an average solution even in the best case, that is inferior to the living intelligence of a wise man on the spot, who can judge particular circumstances. This defect is discussed by Aristotle in the well-known passage in his "Politics" where he considers "whether it is more advantageous to be ruled by the best man or the best laws."[...]
The case for a strong executive begins from urgent necessity and extends to necessity in the sense of efficacy and even greatness. It is necessary not merely to respond to circumstances but also in a comprehensive way to seek to anticipate and form them. "Necessary to" the survival of a society expands to become "necessary for" the good life there, and indeed we look for signs in the way a government acts in emergencies for what it thinks to be good after the emergency has passed. A free government should show its respect for freedom even when it has to take it away. Yet despite the expansion inherent in necessity, the distinction between urgent crises and quiet times remains. Machiavelli called the latter tempi pacifici, and he thought that governments could not take them for granted. What works for quiet times is not appropriate in stormy times. John Locke and the American Founders showed a similar understanding to Machiavelli's when they argued for and fashioned a strong executive.
It says a lot that a Bush cultist is favorably quoting an outright advocate of dictatorship.
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Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.[...]
Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.
Maybe this will help WaPo editorial page editor Fred Hiatt realize that his slavish devotion to BushCo™ is, shall we say, a bit misguided.
Naaah.
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Sure, Dick Cheney's a bad guy but let's not upset things by holding him accountable.
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Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view. A one-time law student, Palfrey ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges.[...]
Sibley also filed notice that he intends to depose political consultant Dick Morris in a separate civil proceeding. Morris would not comment.
Is this story going somewhere?
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After years of cozying up to the man in the White House, and emerging (for better or worse) as the most eloquent defender of Bush's current strategy in Iraq, McCain this week reverted suddenly and dramatically to his 1999-2000 role as the leading Republican critic of politics as usual.[...]
But for John McCain, there must be at least some relief now in being able to speak his own mind -- whatever the consequences. Candor, even belatedly, becomes him.
Broder must be the most clueless person in Washington DC.
And it has always been thus: See this gem from 1969.
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The rumors were true: David "The Dean" Broder has hit bottom, broken through that bottom, and has found a whole new bottom:
Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.
The Dean goes on to list the "gaffes" - as he calls them - that Harry Reid has committed. Note to David: Alan Greenspan was "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."
In the process Broder manages to attack Chuck Schumer and Chris Dodd as well.
Back to Reid:
Given the way the Constitution divides warmaking power between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, as sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow until a new president takes office.
David: The White House doesn't negotiate. It orders. That you haven't figured this out yet shows that you're a hack.
David: Have you seen this poll out just this morning?
President Bush's approval rating slipped to new lows in the most recent Harris Interactive survey, but he's not alone: For the first time since the series began, all of the political figures and institutions included in the survey have negative performance ratings.Of the 1,001 American adults polled online April 20-23, only 28% had a positive view of Mr. Bush's job performance, down from 32% in February and from a high of 88% in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The current rating is his weakest showing since his inauguration. [Via watertiger.]
28%, David, 28%.
David, you may have a great reporter at one time but it's time that you realize that you've grown old and intellectually lazy. Don't you think it's time to retire and enjoy your sunset years? You could take up wood-working or maybe learn how to tie fishing flies.
But whatever you decide, David, you're obsolete. It's time to realize that.
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It's tempting to say that only Charles "Squeaky Wheels" Krauthmmer could turn the Virginia Tech massacre into an attack on Barack Obama.
Oh, who am I kidding? Krauthammer is the most loathsome columnist published in any major newspaper.
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Why is the Washington Post giving space to Robert Novak (the "Douchebag of Liberty") to lecture us about the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and to further perpetuate the slanders against Valerie Plame?
And here I thought the WaPo was a liberal tool!*
*Yep, still sarcasm.
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Why is the Washington Post giving space to Liz Cheney (the not Hell-bound pregnant gay one) to lecture us on the "truth" about Syria and to further perpetuate the slanders against Nancy Pelosi?
And here I thought the WaPo was a liberal tool!*
*Yes, that was sarcasm.
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...writes the following:
You might not have noticed, but we broke another U.S. space record last month when astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria logged his 67th hour of spacewalking. If you consider that the equivalent of the Guinness record for pogo-stick bouncing (23.11 miles in 12 hours and 27 minutes) -- amazing but pointless -- I agree with you. There's nothing quite as beautiful as the space station and the shuttle that services it, and nothing quite as useless.
...you know that he isn't serious.
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The WaPo's Robert Samuelson:
To be sure, the war's costs have been huge. Since September 2001, Congress has provided $503 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and related activities, says the Congressional Budget Office. The administration's request for fiscal 2007 (ending in September) and fiscal 2008 would bring the total to $746 billion. Iraq represents about 70 percent of that. By contrast, my original column put the cost of an Iraq war at up to $80 billion. That was based on the cost then of the war in Afghanistan ($10 billion), the cost of the Persian Gulf War ($61 billion) and the expectation that another invasion would involve fewer troops (it did).
This reminds me of former White House economic adviser Larry Lindsay:
When White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey stumbled off message in September 2002 with his prediction that war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, the administration flew into crisis mode. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was trotted out to label the estimate "very, very high." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz opined -- in testimony to Congress, no less -- that reconstruction would cost virtually nothing in light of Iraq's promising oil revenues. Daniels proffered an estimate in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, substantially less than the $80 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Persian Gulf War. Lindsey, famously, was soon after fired -- for his troublesome cost estimates and, reportedly, the President's annoyance at his poor personal fitness habits.
Ah, yes, for the innocent days of 2002-2003 when everything was about to come up roses (flowers and sweets!) and those of us who said "hey, wait a minute" were at best ignored and called "traitors" at worst. Happily, those people learned from their mistakes.
Right?
RIGHT!?
(And I had forgotten about George's disgust with Lindsay's "poor personal fitness habits." Our president is a loon, y'know.)
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The WaPo fronts a story about how many speeches Bill Clinton gives and how much money he makes. Out of three web pages only two sentences talk about Poppy Bush's lucrative speaking fees (with a passing mention of Jimmy Carter tossed in).
If Bill Clinton didn't exist the media would have to invent him.
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I think there's a problem with this graphic:
Britain has 55,000 troops in Iraq? South Korea has as many troops in Iraq as the US?
Boy, they've kept that a secret, haven't they?
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Attaturk checked in on David Broder's WaPo chat today and finds this:
Charlotte, N.C.: Do you think Bush ever can recover his public standing? Iraq's not going away, and the only presidents who were ever this unpopular this late in their terms -- and for so long -- were Truman during Korea and Carter during 1979-80. Not good models for winning the people over. And remember that the people stood by Bill Clinton during Lewinsky, even if Washington didn't.David S. Broder: Hello to everyone. Yes, I thiink it is possible for President Bush to recover some of his political standing. In a column today, I argue that he is poised to do so. If you want to talk historical precdents, remember to include President Eisenhower who was ruined in the sixth year by ZIran-contra and recovered fully by the end of his term. The real challenge to Bush is Iraq, and I see little ground for optimism there.
Can you spot what's wrong with Broder's answer? Good, I knew you could!
Is there any doubt that he should be put out to pasture?
And Broder makes a prediction:
Reading, Pa.: David: When President Bush replaced Don Rumsfeld with Bob Gates, wasn't this a clear signal of his intentions given Gates' extensive knowledge of Iran? Why is Congress so indignant now -- aren't they aware of what's going on? Or can't they hear the drumbeats of war like the rest of the nation?David S. Broder: Some in Congress hear that drumbeat clearly. I do not. I think Secretary Gates and the President recognize the risks in a war with Iran and will try to avoid it.
We shall see.
And as for Valerie Plame:
Re: Plame: How far do you think the Wilsons will get with their civil suit?David S. Broder: I have no idea. If you think I'm not terribly interested in this story, you'd be right.
Ah, the wisdom of the "Dean" of the Washington Press Corpse.
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Literally. David Broder writes:
One of the losers in the weekend oratorical marathon was retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of "Duty, Honor, Country," forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military. [...]
Does Davey have any data to back that up? Surveys, polls, what have you? Of course not.
That's just a boldfaced lie by Broder, no two ways about it. I happened to be in attendance at the speech in question, just a stone's throw away from General Clark when he gave it. What David Broder is saying here is an absolute lie. The crowd in attendance stood on their feet, clapped their hands loudly and strongly time and time again when speakers - including Gen. Clark - invoked the service and sacrifice of America's fighting men and women.
As Oliver says, David Broder is a filthy liar.
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