In this perfect meritocracy we commoners call America, it's good to see that our most dynamic, enterprising and promising youth can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and, by dint of the shear force of their intellegence, effort, and hard work*, rise to the top.

I want more power

In the near future we are going to see a great deal of manuvering for power. As a long time observer of Versailles, I thought I would destruct Rahm Emanuel's pathetic manuvering.

On Sunday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) whether he would be interested in serving as Obama's chief of staff. Emanuel did not rule it out.

It truly sickens me the way Republicans can spend a lifetime of running our country into the ground, go on Sunday morning TV, make a few nice sounds and presto, he's cabinet material.

The latest from Steve Clemons: Chuck Hagel Will Help Obama Find his "Inner Nixon".

Clemons says this like it was a good thing. Yeah, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the destruction of Chilean democracy, and so many other things were such a good idea and worked out so well for our country.

There's a quote that's interested me for a while:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

And why does anyone care what she thinks?

Lambert asks what is up with the latest craptaculence from Julie Bosman's keyboard, and where have all the decent reporters gone? Good questions; there’s a story beneath the story here, and it encapsulates everything that is wrong with what is fraudulently passed off as contemporary “journalism.” Let’s dig down into the muck a bit, shall we?

How on earth did this Op Ed get published? That is what I want to know.

Here is Edward Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a member in good standing of the Washington foreign policy establishment, all dues paid up, (which probably answers my opening question), speculating in this morning's New York Times about the security implications of an Obama presidency, for Obama himself and for the country, unembarrassed to tell us that Obama's conversion to Christianity makes him ripe for punishment by beheading, no less, or at best, by stoning or by hanging.

Mike Finnigan alerted me to this clip, specifically the section between 3:15 and 5:40.

Seems to me that Fox News and ABC have some 'splaining to do about why they left out a noteworthy context: that Wright's citation of America's "chickens coming home to roost" on 9/11 began with his attribution of the phrase to a white ambassador named "Peck," whom he says — in the original, now controversial sermon — made that statement on a Fox News show.

Especially for Fox, putting aside that network's "forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" exemption, stripping out this context is the kind of thing that used to be called unacceptable journalism.

As for Wright, however, I don't find this additional context exculpatory. Regardless of how much his "roost" rant is a quote, paraphrase, riff, or whatever, he is still enthusiastically rationalizing the wanton murder of 3,000 innocent civilians. For some inexplicable reason, that doesn't sit well with me.

Now, one has to wonder... did Obama know about this fuller context when he wrote his legendary speech of last week? It's hard to believe that his staff didn't comb over the "offending" source material, that they didn't talk with Wright about the controversial sermons — and that no one brought the "white ambassador" context to his attention.

Why, then, didn't he bring it up?

Even though I've been critical of Wright, I felt honor-bound to share this additional information as soon as I heard about it. Yet Obama didn't, and
I am seriously puzzled about that.   Read more…

The last post I wrote on this site took us through the backdoor sliders that Rove and Atwater plunked on Democrats in the Republicans’ last successful bids. At first, I was going to examine how some of the previous backdoor sliders were being used today(The Dean Scream morphing into The Hillary Cackle, for example), but recent events have pushed that one to the far burner.

While it looks like the Rezko situation, which I first believed was going to be the Backdoor Slider that makes Obama freeze at the plate for Strike Three, and would give McCain the White House at that point, I’ve come to realize that Rezko will be the frontal assault – or the High-Inside Fastball that Rove and company will throw at him. McCain, thanks to the   Read more…

Each of these candidates deals with the press, they have to, and each of them do it in their own way. I’m not at all suggesting that the treatment they have received has been equitable, it has not. The Clintons have been subject to relentless smear and innuendo far outside what we in America consider fair treatment, although it would be everyday journalism in the rest of the free world. McCain, on the other hand, has been given a pretty free ride his whole life and like other press favorites including, to be fair, FDR and JFK, gets to skate along while his inconsistencies and foibles are only briefly mentioned if at all.

This isn’t fair, it isn’t reasonable, and it isn’t right, but it is reality. For Hillary to succeed, either as a candidate or as President, she will have to find a way to manage her relationship with the press in a manner that improves her coverage. I suggest that there are things she could be doing better than she is, and that while she is certainly not responsible for the behavior of the press, she is responsible for her own behavior. As examples, here are a couple of recent occurrences.

The talk of the current news cycle...

Now stop right there, Vasty. What the fuck is a "news cycle"? It's the daily-or-so ritual by which the media crams a clump of bullshit (or, occasionally, a better cut of news) down our throats — ideally with us hoovering it down like carrion on crack.

Anyway, the talk of the news cycle that's played out since last night is how Hillary won the news cycles leading up to the voting in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

How malignantly meta is that? The pundits fancying themselves as merely sharp-eyed spectators to their own manufactured events. Golly, gee, which stories did we decide to force-feed the American public in the Ludovico Treatment known as 24-hour news? Hmm, I don't know... maybe we could get David Broder or David Brooks to talk to some regular Americans and find out!

Anyway, the bobbleheads yammered away about how Hillary Clinton had won the recent news cycles with her MOAB-scale mudslinging. Then they proceeded to speculate, with titillated horror, on what she might do to top the various things they felt like saying she did (but without feeling like, say, researching whether she did them).

Occasionally, they dared to speculate that The Hopeful One might reluctantly have to drag himself down to Hillary's slimeball level, with progressives like Rachel Maddow rending their garments with concerns about the queen of mean's continued and increasingly divisive campaign being bad for the party.

So, here's what I want to know...

CBS has become a pew forum in its own right:

In a single sentence in one story on religion in the United States, CBS Evening News managed to insult the vast majority of the American people. Describing a major new study on Americans' religious faith from the Pew Forum, CBS' Wyatt Andrews suggested that atheism in particular and Americans' widely shared belief in a secular society in general is immoral:

"The unprecedented survey of religion answers many concerns about a secular, morally void America. To the surprise of many experts, Americans are still deeply religious, with 84 percent of adults claiming a religious affiliation."

(h/t Make Them Accountable)

...and she was holding an iron. That's the only conclusion I can draw from this headline:

"Clinton responds to seemingly sexist shouts"

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign stop was interrupted Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one of her final appearances before the New Hampshire primary.

Clinton, a former first lady running to become the nation's first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing the laundry and not running the country.

Yes... That suggestion does seem awfully sexist... [strokes chin thoughtfully]

seeming[2,adjective]

Main Entry: seeming
Function: adjective
Date: circa 1557

: outwardly or superficially evident but not true or real

First of all, as homework you are required to watch the "FU Frank" fake pollster episode of Penn & Teller's pay-cable thinktank propaganda show.

  Read more…

Being a professional journalist is a tough job.

The news media establishment — which did such yeoman work emasculating Al Gore and disrespecting John Kerry's service to our country — has invested its energies into crafting a "Nice Guy" image for Mike Huckabee.

It's hard work creating and mindlessly repeating shallow memes until every soccer-mom and -dad has learned them by heart.

When you thought Scooter Libby should pay for his crimes like any other convict — maybe even more so, because he abetted the wrongful killings of hundreds of thousands of people and helped shatter our nation's intelligence apparatus — the media told you that you wanted him to go free. Think of how it would have hurt their feelings if they'd looked at the polls that showed you'd come to the wrong conclusion.

How about a little compassion, folks? What are you going to do next, ask Joe Klein to read the legislation he writes about? Thoughtless bastards, you are!

Via Our Gray Master:

The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary "We Are Full Of Shit Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear."

The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the "CNN Presents" banner, was "set partially in the future," featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials -- playing fictional cabinet members -- debate how to deal with the Iranian threat.

That special was "based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions," said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report "changed everything."

A different set of rules?!

Yes, of course it's true. It's on the internets! And her foes are using it to spread rumors about her!

You see how I did that? It's a neat trick, huh? Now, as the rules of second-hand prestidigitation require, I'll tell you where I learned it.

From this abomination on Page 1 of the WaHo.

Foes Use Obama’s Muslim Ties [sic] (Wouldn't "scare quotes" have been appropriate here? - scar) to Fuel Rumors About Him

By Perry Bacon Jr.

In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama’s biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.

Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama’s stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a “Muslim plant” in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year. […]

The rumors about Obama have been echoed on Internet message boards and chain e-mails.

In case you're wondering, that last part is the one sentence in the article that could be remotely construed as reality-based. All the rest is devoted to verbatim, 1996-vintage, tenth-generation inbred wingnut chain mail about how "HILLARY OBAMA is going to force EVERYONE to become a LESBIAN! MUSLIM!"

Anyway, if you've heard any facts that foes of Deborah Howell (or any other WaHo employee) are using to fuel rumors about them, please feel free to post them here, or on the WaHo's site. After all...

In the tradition of hearkening back to holiday massacrees of days gone by, I belatedly cross-post this item from my ol' solo blog: a response to the Christianist grinch who tried to steal Thanksgiving.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A GOP leader Sunday denied a double standard in pushing Sen. Larry Craig to resign after a sex sting guilty plea, while remaining silent over GOP Sen. David Vitter's involvement with an escort service.

He said.

A senior Democrat said a double standard by Republican leaders is exactly what occurred.

He said.

UPI stylebook entry, mid-1970s:

Burro, burrow: A burro is an ass; a burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist, you are expected to know the difference.

In Glenn Greenwald's essential article on the dismal approval ratings for Congress, we see that such advice is not being heeded:

Contrary to the general impression created by the media when discussing this polling data, Congress' extremely low standing does not undermine or dilute the intense unpopularity of Bush and his party among Americans. To the contrary, it bolsters it and arises from it.

She Who Until Very Recently Was Unseen:

If we do nothing else, we should ensure that the Democratic candidates pay no attention to these gasbags. That's not to say they shouldn't pay attention to the actual press narratives and the stereotypes that will inevitably emerge. But the punditocrisy should be shunned and ignored.

In case any of you might have harbored the hopeful thought that George Stephanopoulis might cover the astonishing news that according to Mr. Cheney, (and he should know, shouldn't he?), his Vice-Presidency is not an "entity" within the Executive branch, and even if you only harbored an iota of an iota therein, no, wrong again; I don't even think the name "Cheney" passed the lips of anyone this week on This week.

Perhaps you were thinking of the questions you could have thrown at Senator Kennedy or Senator Sessions on this latest example of the imperial Presidency? Well, for heaven's sake, that's why George gets to be on the telly every week...and you don't.

Or perhaps you expected that Incurious George would stick with immigration and Iraq for his guest interviews, but that surely the roundtable would spend some time on the story, especially since the Washington Post today published the first of a four part series on Cheney's secretive ways.

Nope.

Perhaps I'm being unfair; perhaps the roundtable was taped on Friday, so that all the principals, which included, besides George Will and Lil' George, Fareed Zacaria, Torie Clarke, and Jake Tapper, could get to their summer homes, at the shore, lakeside, on the island. Come to think of it, don't you often have the feeling that the show could be taped at any point during the week and shown on Sunday, for all the difference it would make in what gets covered and what gets said?

No wonder the beltway 500 are so enamored of consensus building; it's how they do journalism.

And is there any better spokesman for consensus than Lil' George? Not bloody likely.

Okay, now to what did get said.

I have no idea how I ran across this today but it's kinda cute. Actually it would be very cute if it weren't so damn depressingly accurate. Dude was channelling Royko when he put this one together. From Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press, an excerpt (so as not to violate Rule 10):

3. When deciding which tragedies deserve the most prominent coverage, use this simple math: 10,000 foreigners = one cute white American chick.

4. If the President of the United States is accused of violating the law on the same day that an African country erupts into civil war and an especially gloomy economic report is released, and you must decide which one is your lead story, ask yourself this: Did the local sports team just win a big game?

5. Internet, Schminternet. It will be gone in five years. People will always love reading a newspaper -- and so will you, our intrepid reporter, once you accept our buyout offer.

6. When working at the New York Post, make sure your story includes all six W's: Who, What, When, Where, Why and With What Kind of Lubricant.

7. When appearing on television, insinuate that all newspaper reporters are biased. When writing for a newspaper, imply that all television people are boobs with no credibility. When at the bar afterward, complain that nobody trusts journalists anymore.

I would end this with "And that's the way it is, June 4 2007" but I would not want the ghost of Cronkite to come after my ass. No, he's not dead

How cool is having WaPo's Dan Froomkin quoting Atrios on the subject of the creation of the term "Friedman Unit." Along with a concise definition:

For many American politicians and pundits, "the next several months" have always been make or break in Iraq. But the actual moment of truth never seemed to come around.

The ubiquity of those ever-postponed reckonings has even led some bloggers to use the term "Friedman Unit" to represent a six-month period. Liberal blogger Duncan Black (Atrios) coined the phrase about two Friedmans ago, inspired by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's revelation that New York Times columnist and talking head Thomas L. Friedman had been making six-month do-or-die forecasts about Iraq ever since November 2003.

You know that gesture wherein you put your forefinger sideways in your mouth, puff up your cheeks, push the finger out sharply to make a "pop" noise, then wave finger in the air? Signifies "big whoopin' do" in a rude and vulgar way. I was all ready to do that when I saw this headline...Times Names Public Editor, and since I couldn't click the mouse and raise that finger to the mouth at the same time I clicked first. Good move:

The New York Times today named its next public editor, Clark Hoyt, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who oversaw the Knight Ridder newspaper chain’s coverage that questioned the Bush administration’s case for the Iraq war.

Hmm. Not to sound like a racetrack tout trying to pick a winner in the Derby but this dude's bloodlines and recent workout times look good.

Interesting that this is the first time I've heard NYT say that "Public Editor" is a time-limited position.

Because he says things like this about the "White House Correspondents" dinner, right out in front of God and everybody:

But I was struck by what seemed to be among the sentiments emanating from the head-table:

* That a has-been impressionist was a more appropriate choice for entertainment than the acerbic and brilliant political satirist who last year hurt some people's feelings.

* That the tragic Virginia Tech massacre required solemn observation and expressions of great respect, while the seemingly endless war that often claims as many victims in a day deserved virtually no mention at all.

* That a night full of journalists sucking up to their sources is not just defensible but actually honorable because of all the aggressive reporting that goes on every other day.

There's more. I suggest you go read it there because I do not want to sully these pages with lesser words than the ones just quoted above. Kinda the way the British, after drinking a toast to the Queen, break the glass from which it is drunk so it may never be used for a lesser purpose again.