We're All Snobs.

At least according to John Gibson we are.

Instead of clamoring for new information on Anna Nicole Smith (Who frankly, would have cost me big money in a dead pool--- Who expected her to last this long?), we insist on... You know, real news.

H/T to ThinkProgress:

GIBSON: Now I submit to you that that is a real, honest-to-God drama. Now it may not fit the high-minded views of a lot of news professionals, people who think that their news program is just another part of Foreign Affairs Quarterly. That only a certain kind of news is worthy of their discussing. Those people are snobs. They’re people who, when they see a story, go, “Ew, icky. I don’t want to do that.” I did this for years. I’ve been doing a long time. I’ve approached many stories and said, “That story isn’t worth our trouble.” It has always been a mistake. Always. Every single time I did it. So when I see people like this guy —
[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.
GIBSON: Oh, there’s a war on, there’s a war on. Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else. Maybe that’s why they all thundered to this story.
[CLIP ANDERSON COOPER] There’s a war on, there’s a war on, there’s a war on.
GIBSON: My complaint about this is what you’re listening to when you hear that guy lecture the audience, is you’re listening to news-guy snobbery. Essentially saying, “I’m better than you. I know what you want to hear about, but I’m better than that story. I’m too high class for that story. I won’t stoop to what you want to hear about.”
I’m not playing that. People want to hear about the Anna Nicole story, I’m happy to tell them.

Incidentally, dumbass--- Foreign Affairs is bimonthly, not quarterly. Then again, why would I expect the "stick your head in the sand and avoid learning anything" crowd to know that? Not saying you have to be an idiot to not realize that--- But when your job is delivering commentary on, among other things, foreign policy, shouldn't you be familiar with the best publication for learning about it?

The Golden Campy Award Goes To...

... who else?

The namesake of this award, Stacey Campfield (Who earned such an honor by outdumbing The Decider) is the best person to break this award in.

Not for his spirited defense of Terry Frank, although it certainly is deserving. Nor is it for his wish to give a death certificate to every aborted fetus.

No, he wins it for the Wife Beater Protection Act. In Campy's Perfect World, if someone files for an order of protection and the order is denied, the person who filed the petition should be responsible for the legal bills of the person they filed against.

This could be devastating to women of limited resources whose abusive husbands have the means to hire good attorneys.

Campfield is pushing for that as part of a legislative agenda that reduces the court system to a gambling parlor. To file anything in court, you would need to be prepared to pay the other party's legal fees if you lose--- Something that would kill any litigation against a corporation for product liability, harassment, or workplace injury unless the case was so tight that there was no way to lose--- And when a David files against a corporate Goliath, there's always a way to lose.

Update:

(Hat tip to R. Neal at Knox Views. I got "Wife Beater Protection Act" from the lady that emailed me a link to the bill last night. Turns out she got it here. )

This Week's Ivins Award Goes To...

Autoegocrat, for issuing the best line possible regarding the Edmund Ford scandal. No matter who writes about it, this line will never be topped:

"What is this world coming to? Doesn't anyone know how to take a bribe by candlelight anymore?"

"And It Happens Every Year" by Newscoma

Everyone should have a look at this one. It's really a beautiful piece of writing.

The Only Member of the Council On Foreign Relations You've Ever Seen Naked...

Okay, once you get past the initial guffaws that reading that Angelina Jolie is now a member of the Council On Foreign Relations will surely inspire, it's not a bad move. Her work on behalf of AIDS orphans, refugees, famine victims, and disaster victims is certainly great, and lends a much-needed layer of activism to a group known primarily for more distanced academia.

Plus, we might finally get some much needed swimsuit pictures in the informative but dry Foreign Affairs.

Now, I will continue on my drive to get her to adopt Britney Spears' children and perhaps Anna Nicle Smith's baby as well.

Said member Carol Adelman: "It's not like Paris Hilton is being nominated."

The Most Insidious of Traitors...

Yikes!

Could Al Sharpton be related to Strom Thurmond? And furthermore, doesn't this sound like the setup to a really bad sitcom or buddy cop movie?

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Rev. Al Sharpton said he wants a DNA test to determine whether he is related to former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond through his great-grandfather, a slave owned by an ancestor of the late senator...

...Professional genealogists, who work for Ancestry.com, found that Sharpton's great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather. Coleman Sharpton was later freed...

And we already know that the Thurmond family tended to get busy with help now and again, don't we?

Al Gore Wins the Oscar!

At least until the Supreme Court takes it away from him and hands it over to George W. Bush. Now let's draft Gore and keep this one out of stealing distance.

Kibitzer did a great writeup on Tennessee's favorite son that should be seen by all.

Have You Seen Her?

The New Republican

The New Republican has been sold. I'm sure this isn't new knowledge--- It's been reported everywhere. Except, of course, The New Republican.

Peter Beinart uses his last editorial at the magazine to do what he's been doing for years--- Trying to play it both ways regarding the war in Iraq.

A couple of years ago, TNR ran the landmark "We Were Wrong" issue which, despite the cover, was short on mea culpa and long on excuses. Instead of the John Edwards-type confessional we were led to expect, we were treated to a Hillary Clinton-esque hodgepodge of excuses, all of which sidestepped the issue of TNR's refusal to question the drivel we were hearing out of Washington.

While the White House was banging war drums, TNR was singing harmony vocals. Perhaps new editor Frankin Foer will be at least a little more discriminating than Beinart was.

Vilsack

My father loved the old TV show "Married With Children". There was an old episode of the show where Al and Peggy Bundy went to a hotel that their neighbors Marcy and Steve used in an effort to"spice up" the old marriage. After having sex, they popped in the complimentary porn video the hotel managers gave them as they signed in, and saw that it was Steve and Marcy. Unwittingly, every person that stayed there had been videotaped in their rooms. Both couples sued the hotel. Steve and Marcy got damages, but Al and Peggy got nothing--- The sex act was so brief that no one could verify that it actually happened.

So... Does Vilsack's candidacy even count as a campaign? Or just an idea?

Update: I should have looked before I posted. Brother Cracker got there a little bit ahead of me. Despite his kindness in the comments here, his is better.

Weapons of Mass Deception...

... or "How To Turn 600 Pounds Into One Million pounds In Three Easy Steps".

In the interest of disclosure, this message is here because, like Stacey Campfield, Terry Frank has felt the need to make my latest response to her blather go away rather than face up to it. My response broke no rules. There was no profanity. I didn't call her an idiot in it--- Of course, I proved her to be an idiot, which is perhaps just as dreadful to a blogger whose existence seems to take place entirely in a vacuum of "attaboy" taps on the ass from a fawning group of sycophants who cling to her blather as dogma.

For now, we have the meat of her story. She defends her "discovery" of this massive, one million pound stockpile of nuclear materials this way:

While my numbers most likely include some that you have referenced, exclusive is my reporting of UF4–known as “green salt.”

600 pounds of uranium tetrafluoride, aka "green salt". Not anything you would want to sprinkle on your fries, mind you. It's not fissionable material in and of itself, but is used to convert uranium hexafluoride into either a uranium oxide or uranium metal. But saying it's a weapon of mass destruction is akin to saying the gas can you've got out in the shed is actually a car.

The problem is that one important piece is missing for this to have actually been a justification for the war in Iraq--- An effort to refine and enrich uranium. Uranium enrichment doesn't take place in an EZ Bake Oven. The Al-Qa'im plant that was used for that purpose was destroyed by coalition troops in 1991. Every discovery made at that plant dates back to the pre-1991 efforts. At one other plant, Ibn-Sina, we discovered a few kilograms of uranium-bearing waste, but it was the byproduct of phosphoric acid production.

And lest any right wing dogma-types start fretting over phosphoric acid--- It's a chemical compound that removes rust and is also found in soft drinks (Which is kind of a scary thought in and of itself. Which flavor of rust remover would you like with your fries?).

Even this is far afield. For as interesting as this edition of "better living through chemistry" has been, it still does nothing to justify the war. For none of this is the reason we were told we were going in (As I pointed out in a missive to the Frank blog that has disappeared down the memory hole).

Where are the 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin we were told of in the 2003 State of the Union? What of the 25,000 liters of anthrax referenced in the same speech?

How about the 10/7/02 speech in Cincinatti where the president used the phrase "9/11" or some variation on it in reference to Iraq a dozen times, then told us that Saddam had nuclear mujahedeen--- "Nukyaler holy warriors", as the president called them--- That were willing and waiting to go carry out nuclear attacks in the name of Saddam Hussein?

The American public was misled constantly during the buildup to this war. Misleading it again in a futile attempt to retroactively justify it is simply wrong on every level.

Unlike Madam Censor, I don't delete attempts to show me up on my own site. To the contrary, I invite it. People that have nothing to fear from the truth don't feel the need to suppress dissent.

The Terry Frank Story Unravels.

Not that she's copped to it, mind you.

The startling discovery she's made was, in fact, in the Iraq Survey Group report. In fact, it's inventory that we already knew about. It's inventory acquired between 1979 and 1982 that we already knew about and was already under safeguard or deemed not weapons grade.

We should all congratulate Terry Frank for discovering what we already knew. Following her fine example, I'm going to the river so I can look across and discover Arkansas (Not that I think anyone will thank me for it).

**It should be pointed out that the amounts were matched up to the ISG report by a commenter on Franks' blog calling him/herself Gattsuru that was attempting to defend Franks.

Terry Frank Document Watch, Day 1

Terry Frank at rightwing blog Frankly Speaking claims to have unearthed documents that will turn the world upside down--- She claims to have evidence of one million pounds of uranium were in the possession of one Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Of course, for her claims to have even a passing resemblance to reality, you have to believe a few things which are, at best, leaps of logic that not even Evel Kenievel in his prime would have dared approach:

1. The White House enjoys being a laughingstock so much that it wouldn't even bother making an announcement that could help it shed its reputation as an outfit so incompetent that it couldn't find nipples in a titty bar.
2. The smartest place to store sensitive documents related to weapons of mass destruction held by a foreign power is the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a government facility with a largely civilian workforce and 3000 guest researchers that stay for two weeks or more per year.
3. The first call when it comes time to disclose the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, one of the thorniest issues to ever face this White House or any other is not one of the friendly media outets such as Fox News or the Washington Moonie Times. Nor is it the New York Times, home of Judith "I ask no questions" Miller, who actually spent time in jail covering up secrets for this White House. It's not even to male prostitute Jeff Gannon, who had wider access to the White House than most of the senior staff (Not to mention a three hour jump on the beginning of "Shock and Awe"). It goes to Terry Frank, a blogger from East Tennessee.
4. Terry Frank is in possession of these documents, but can't find anyone with a scanner willing to help exonerate the White House.
5. The White House was so concerned with keeping the secrets of Saddam Hussein (Despite being unable to keep video of his hanging or pictures of him in his tighty whities off of the internet) that even now, they can't talk about a massive nuclear stockpile that would boost Bush's approvals by at least 20 points.

Of course, we'll never actually get the answers to any of these questions, will we? Nor will we ever see a verifiable scan of said document--- And by "verifiable", I mean one that will get the White House to say "Yes, it's true".

So today is Day One of what will be a very long wait. There will be, at a bare minimum, one post a day on this site goofing on Terry Frank until she either posts verifiable documents or gets over her delusions of grandeur.

And to show you just how credible this report is--- Stacey Campfield, winner of yesterday's Golden Bushie (I think I gave it out a day too soon) thinks it's true (Via Pesky Fly).

The McCain vs. McCain Debate

Fact: John McCain wants to be president.

So much campaign rhetoric has been thrown about over the last few months that it's only fitting to go ahead and kick off debate season now. And I'll be moderating the first debate.

In one corner, we have Maverick Senator John McCain.

In the other corner, we have the only man bold enough to stand up to Maverick Senator McCain--- Presidential Candidate John McCain.

Maverick Senator McCain, you won the coin toss, so you get to start things off. Tell us what you think of the evangelical movement in America.

Maverick Senator McCain: Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right. (2/28/00)

Me: Very good, Senator. Presidential Candidate McCain, you may now rebut.

Presidential Candidate McCain: I met with Rev. Falwell. He came to see me in Washington. We agreed to disagree on certain issues, and we agreed to move forward. (4/2/06)

Me: Clearly, our two candidates disagree. Now, I'll ask our two candidates: Has the war in Iraq been properly managed? Presidential Candidate McCain, I'll let you start this one.

Presidential Candidate McCain: We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement — that's the kindest word I can give you — of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war. The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously. (2/19/07)

Me: Well, you can't get more clearly stated than that. Shades of the "Straight Talk Express". Maverick Senator McCain, your response?

Maverick Senator McCain: While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service. (11/06)

Me: Straight talk indeed. Maverick Senator McCain, I'll allow you to start this one. Where do you stand on Roe vs. Wade?

Maverick Senator McCain: I’d love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to illegal and dangerous operations. (8/24/99)

Me: Presidential Candidate McCain, your rebuttal?

Presidential Candidate McCain: I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned. (2/18/07)

Me: Short and straight to the point. Since the Clinton years, the Republican Party has been on a bit of a tangent against adulturers, and rightly so. With the entrance of Rudy Giuliani in this race, who was so bold that he moved his mistress into Gracie Mansion, it's bound to come up again. Presidential Candidate McCain, you're scheduled to give a talk to South Carolina students advocating that they forgo sex outside of marriage, right?

Presidential Candidate McCain: [Silence] (2/17/07)

Me: Wow. Even shorter, even more to the point. Maverick Senator McCain, your views on sex outside of marriage?

Maverick Senator McCain: Let me say that I am responsible for the breakup of my first marriage. I will not discuss or talk about that any more than that. If someone wants to criticize me for that, that's fine. (2/12/99)

Me: Not... Exactly what I was shooting for, but I admire Maverick Senator McCain's willingness to own up to his mistakes. Maverick Senator McCain, could you tell me your views on the "surge" in Iraq?

Maverick Senator McCain: Took us a long time to get in the situation we’re in, and to say that — and somehow assume that in a few months, that things are going to get all better I think is not realistic. (2/4/07)

Me: Presidential Candidate McCain, your response?

Presidential Candidate McCain: I think in the case of the Iraqi government cooperating and doing what’s necessary, we can know fairly well in a few months. (2/4/07, 47 seconds later)

Me: I want to thank you both for showing up today. We'll see you on the campaign trail.

The Golden Bushie Award For Accomplishments in Assclownism...

... goes to Representative Stacey Campfield, whose recent efforts could very well earn him the right to have this award renamed in his (dubious) honor.

He laments the return of the term "baby killer" into the American lexicon while conveniently sidestepping of the fact that it's the rightwing, anti-choice dragoons that have brought it back (Anyone heard it used in any other capacity lately?).

And of course, as documented here, he recently tried to put over the myth that Partial birth abortion is legal in Tennessee, despite the passage of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003, which actually made it illegal in all 50 states [Note: At the same time, he made me feel wholly justified in my blog post about it by feeling the need to remove my much nicer comment from his blog]

But now, he has descended into not just right wing dogma--- But right wing dogma that no one with sentient brain activity can actually buy into.

Is the left so invested in failure that they will do any thing or say any thing to demean the president or our troops? Will they take glory in every misstep? Every Death? It is beginning to appear so.

First, I wouldn't exactly define attempts to prevent future American deaths sacrificed in a cause that helps this country in no way as taking "glory". Personally, I'm pissed off about every one of those deaths. Had any of the president's supporters used any deductive reasoning whatsoever, the most dangerous thing our soldiers would be facing (Outside of Afghanistan, anyway) would be undercooked food at the mess hall. For while a soldier must be prepared to sacrifice his life, we have a responsibility to never throw it away on WMD snipe hunts.

What is this glory and who really revels in it? Is it "the left", as you seem to label all but the persistently vegetative rightwingers that want to keep throwing American lives down the drain? Or is it Mr. "I'm a war president"?

This nation has been failed. Honest and sober assessments regarding war strategy have been met by simpleminded dogma such as "I'm the decider". The counsel of the Iraq Survey Group has been met with--- Well, not much of anything.

So no--- I will not hide my loathing for a president that thinks the best thing to do about the American lives he's already thrown away is to throw away more. It's not hard to find the "alternative plan" you asked about. There are many out there, and a more logical one could be devised by asking questions of a Magic Eight Ball.

So you, for your lack of legal knowledge, your abortion hackery, and your mindless repetition of talking points that still don't make sense even when smarter people than you try to advance them, are the winner of the Golden Bushie.

This Week's Ivins Award Goes To...

Bill Maher for this nugget on "Real Time" Friday night, referring to Ted Haggard:

"You can't be "cured" of homosexuality by meeting with ministers for less than a month. Particularly a month that has Fashion Week in it."

"I Told You Once, You Son of a Bitch, You're the Worst There's Ever Been."

Just shut up and sing.

Isn't that the advice Republicans tend to give to celebrities that voive their opinion about politics, right? (Well, at least as long as those celebrities aren't Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, Clint Eastwood, Ted Nugent, Tom Selleck, or Toby Keith back when he was still in the disagreeing-with-the-war closet.)

Then again, maybe there's a loophole. Maybe the loophole is that you have to use the word "celebrity" pretty loosely to make it apply to Charlie Daniels. After all, the surviving guy from Milli Vanilli had one hit, but I wouldn't call him a celebrity, and his was certainly more recent than "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".

So old Charlie's issued a new fatwa rant against Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi (I do love saying that). This, combined with his earlier admonition to celebrities who disagreed with invading Iraq that they should "get your head out of the sand and smell the Trade Towers burning" , demonstartes why Republicans tend to think celebrities are idiots---

All the ones that they know are.

Of course, I think you should remember that when the terrorists follow us home from Iraq and start their attacks on American soil it’s too late, so you’d better have a plan to deal with it. Do you have a plan?
And if Iran goes into Iraq and makes it a staging ground for Al Qaida to plan and carry out attacks all over the western world you’ll need to deal with that. Do you have a plan?
And if Iran decides to go into Kuwait and cut off the oil flow from the Persian Gulf, you’ll need a way to make up for the shortfall. Do you have a plan?
The world would look at us as a country that has not finished a commitment to war since 1945. Do you have a plan for dealing with that?

I do. I have a plan. We post one American soldier at every border crossing between Iran and any other country and have them blast over a powerful PA system anything of Charlie's other than "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".

I know what you're thinking. The plan certainly has some flaws.

One is that the American soldier forced to carry out such a task is surely on a suicide mission, as even a brief exposure to Charlie Daniels songs would either cause the human skull to explode or to make the bearer of said skull wish it did. But hey, it's a tough job. Sacrifices have to be made. One soldier wishing his head would explode sure beats sacrificing another 3000 just to protect a strategy that consists of "Let's send everyone but Laura, Barney, and the White House Chef overseas so we can move the Halliburton executive liquor cabinet six feet closer to the front line".

The second flaw is that prolonged exposure to Charlie Daniels songs is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, or at the very least, would leave us subject to UN sanctions. But hey, haven't we already proven that we can go to the UN and shovel some horse shit? I think we can beat the rap.

Has Tennessee Seceded From The Union Again?

I just wanted to check after reading this drivel from Representative Stacey Campfield:

Is a death certificate worse then [sic] the fact that partial birth abortion is legal in Tennessee? If you had a choice to end one or the other, what would you put your effort behind stopping? Have you?

Now, the last time I checked, Tennessee was still a part of the United States of America, right? Granted, I had a few beers last night, but I didn't think I was out that long.

So, unless we have, in fact, seceded, then we are still subject to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban of 2003, are we not? I think most people that have so much as a glancing familiarity with law are at least vaguely aware of its passage, although I could be wrong. I would certainly expect more out of an elected official.

They're Coming To Get You, Barbara...

Soon, very soon, they will be marching on Memphis... And as my friend FearlessVK pointed out, "Brains will be eaten..."

So Jake Ford is safe.

Comedy Ain't Easy.

Really. I assure you. The best practitioners make it look easy, but it's really so very not.

Tiger Woods makes golf look easy. But as I prove when I get the clubs out of the closet and rack up a score on the front nine that rivals the national debt, I'm reminded how terribly not easy it is.

This guy makes playing guitar look easy. But I assure you, even getting close to playing the solo from "Under a Glass Moon" will result in hand cramps that last for days.

Apparently, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert make comedy look so easy that Joel Turnow, producer of "24", has decided to try his hand at it.

And you know what? "24" is funnier.

In fact, the humor falls so flat that I can easily imagine Jack Bauer forcing someone to watch it as part of a torture scene.

Bauer: Tell us where the bomb is!"
Terrorist: Never! I'll never tell you anything! Die, you American pig!
Bauer: We have ways of making you talk. (Hits "play" on the remote control)
Terrorist: Stop! Stop! NOOOOO!!! Okay, the bomb is in Rush Limbaugh's stash box!
Bauer: Impossible. He never goes long enough without opening for you to plant it there.
Terrorist: I swear it! It's all the way down in the bottom! Just please turn off that infernal video!!!

I don't even want to embed video of it here--- It's THAT bad. And it's not that they're conservative--- It's just that they suck that bad.

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher--- They may all be liberal. But that's not what makes them funny. What makes them funny is that they're firing off shots at all targets. It's not completely driven by ideology. They'll make fun of Hillary Clinton just as easily as they make fun of George W. Bush.

I can understand thinking that the humor is ideologically driven--- Like it or not, Republicans do a lot of dumb things. The president has a way with words that only Yogi Berra could love, and the party as a whole is trying to put across the idea that a cloture vote is "stifling debate". It's hard to even talk about what's happening without it coming across like a joke. I told a friend of mine about Campfield's bill the other day, and he looked at me like he was waiting for a punchline.

But there's a narrower focus to the "Half Hour Comedy Hour. The jokes are about pushing an agenda.

To quote the Jedi Master Yoda, "And that... is why you fail."

I don't even want to embed videos of this, it's so bad. Instead, I'll link to Brittney Gilbert over at Nashville Is Talking and Adam Kleinheider over at Volunteer Voters. You can see--- One thing in this world that is truly bipartisan is the consensus that this show sucks.

And yes--- I know my friend Pesky Fly talked about it too. But the way I see it, the vast scope of this show's abject suckiness is too big to be contained in just one post.

The Life and Death of a Fake Quote

So when Frank Gaffney of the Washington Times, the Moonie-Wingnut joint business venture that is responsible for more political fiction than David Borowitz, wanted a heavyweight quote for his anti-anti-escalation editorial, he looked no further than our sixteenth president, Honest Abe:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — President Abraham Lincoln

Of course, there was just a slight hiccup with that: Lincoln never said any such thing. Or for that matter, anything even remotely close enough to create confusion.

Strikingly, it was the lead to another op/ed piece they ran in 2003 in their Insight magazine:

"Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged," that's what President Abraham Lincoln said during the War Between the States.
-J. Michael Waller, "Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason." Insight magazine, 23 Dec. 2003.(Courtesy of Factcheck.org)

After that piece ran, the quote was passed around from rightwing blog to rightwing blog. Most likely, Gaffney picked it up from one of them and put it in his article.

But the excuse story still fails the sniff test. When Fact Check first tried to put a long overdue death to this last hear, this is what Waller had to say:

The supposed quote in question is not a quote at all, and I never intended it to be construed as one. It was my lead sentence in the article that a copy editor mistakenly turned into a quote by incorrectly inserting quotation marks.

-J. Michael Waller, email to FactCheck.org, Aug. 21, 2006

What happens if you take out the quotation marks? You still have him attributing something to Lincoln that Lincoln never advocated at all.

But even this is not the greatest problem with it. To quote Waller:

I'm surprised it has been repeated as often as you say. My editors at the time didn't think it was necessary to run a correction in the following issue of the magazine...

And there you have the greatest problem with The Washington Times. It seems that Reverend Moon and George W. Bush are not only equally delusional, but also equally reluctant to admit mistakes.

The New York Times is far from perfect. Almost every day, they run a ton of corrections. And when someone peddling fiction such as Judith Miller or Jayson Blair comes along, they eat their crow prepared well done over a flame pit.

But when someone at the Washington Times makes up drivel out of whole cloth, it goes unmentioned. Even now, there is no correction on their website regarding the Gaffney article. It's still there in its original form.

Untouched by truth, unblemished by well-deserved humiliation, the words of Gaffney and Waller are still there, uncorrected and unacknowledged.

Thank you, Jackson Baker.

For making this happen.

I Just Read It For the Articles.

Dana Goldstein over at Campus Progress posted a piece a few days ago taking Jon Zobenica to task for an essay in The Atlantic that said that Playboy Magazine wasn't as mysogynystic as it was reputed to be.

From her essay:

...The essay is entertaining reading, but I think it's obvious why it's especially appealing to sensitive young men. Zobenica makes them feel like it's not only okay to read Playboy, but that it's mature and heck, even feminist. Fundamentally, this is just a rehashing of the infamous male excuse--"Hey, I was reading it for the articles!" I'm not an anti-porn feminist by any stretch of the imagination. But when I pick up Playboy, it's hard for me to take seriously the "Advisor" column's advice about sexually respecting your real-life girl when the centerfolds, month after month, have obviously fake gigantic boobs, identically hairless and child-like vaginas (Playboy seems to have a policy to never show women with visible vaginal lips), and completely flat stomachs. Women get upset by this because 99 percent of us can't live up to this standard and are bothered by the idea that the men in our lives find it attractive. And many of us, myself included, don't even find these women beautiful.
So I think that when talking about Playboy, it's always pretty disingenuous to overlook the pictures. Because really, when reading the magazine, nobody ever does.

Here's the thing--- Yes, Playboy does have pictures of naked women. I'm sure I'm not doling any new information out to people by saying that. There's not someone out there reading this that thought "I had no idea where to turn to for pictures of naked women, but thanks to Freedonian, I do now!"

Know why that is? We're in the internet age. There's not a single sexual proclivity imaginable that you couldn't find pictures of out there by turning off "Safe Search" in Google and simply typing in the phrase. It's a sign of the times that I had to tell my email filter to automatically delete any email that uses the word "barnyard" in its subject line.

So yes--- If I buy an issue of Playboy (I haven't in a long time), I will most certainly look at the pictures--- For about thirty seconds. I'm a man, so I'm wired that way. Naked woman within reach-- Yes, I will look.

When mankind first discovered fire, we didn't think "Let's cook some steaks". We thought "Hey, we can now see naked women in the dark". The first thing to roll off of a printing press was not, as rumored, The Holy Bible--- It was a set of naughty drawings. And yes, in this modern age, the internet has been turned into a vast database of naked women.

So if you want to objectify women, you're certainly not short of options. And frankly, most are going to be more graphic than Playboy. If anything in any given issue of the magazine is to hold my attention enough to actually make buying it worthwhile, it's going to be the articles.

That inevitably leads to the magic question: What would Playboy be without the pictures? Certainly, they would have to work a bit harder at putting out a quality magazine. I checked into what was in the current issue (Research, you know. Although I can honestly say that I saw nothing in my research beyond lingerie pictures), and I can say that as much as I may like the TV show "Entourage", I'm not willing to pay six bucks to read an interview with Jeremy Piven. Next month--- Who knows? They're interviewing Bill Maher. I might get it, give my thirty second glance at the pictures, and spend a half hour or so reading the Maher interview.

And while Dana is discomforted by the ideal of beauty presented in the magazine, common sense should tell you that it's not what men are looking for in real life. Very few women look very much like a Playboy Playmate (And having seen a couple up close, I can tell you that not even Playmates tend to resemble Playmates all that much)--- Were they the only ones with dates last night? Men aren't "settling" when they date a real woman, are they? Speaking from the male side of this particular coin, I feel safe in saying "of course not". A woman can be the most beautiful woman in the world to a man (And I don't just mean in a biological sense--- I mean a real man) without ever having anything more in common with a Playmate than "Yes, they're both women".

There's a vast chasm between pretty and beautiful. Pretty is an accident of genetics that arranges features in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Beauty is all about who a woman is. It's in her intellect. It's in her sense of humor. It's in how she carries herself, how she presents herself to the world.

Those aspects of a woman are harder to spot visually, granted. No woman has ever walked past a construction site and heard catcalls of "Nice sense of humor, baby" or "Show me your brains!" But at the end of the day, it's what we look for.

I can certainly understand Dana's feelings about Playboy. Once upon a time, you picked up a magazine with pictures of naked women, and there just happened to be a short story by T Coraghessan Boyle and an interview with Bob Dylan within the same magazine.

In this modern age, when Playboy-type content and much more graphic content are mere keystrokes away, men pick up a magazine with a short story by T. Coraghessan Boyle and a Bob Dylan interview in it, and there are naked women within the same magazine.

Yes--- We buy it for the articles.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias.

How Much Are You Willing to Believe?

Once when I was about seven years old, I told my best friend that I was in training to become a Jedi. It wasn't a childhood delusional thing--- I wasn't trying to actually get over with the lie--- I was just seeing how long it takes people to catch on to the fact that whatever I'm saying is pretty preposterous.

Anyway, that day, at age seven, I told Danny how the Jedi thought I was too little for holding a lightsaber at that point, but that if I got a little taller the next year, they'd teach me to fly X-Wings. Just enough detail and even humility to make the ridiculous story seem a little more grounded, but a hell of a long way from making it believable.

What does this have to do with anything? Not much--- Directly.

It's just that when I look at those sad, twisted souls with the once ubiquitous "W" stickers still adorning those cars, I think of Danny--- For just like him, there seems to be no limit to what these people will believe as long as it's a friendly face telling them the story.

It would be easy to look at them and say "These people are dumber than an Elvis movie". And that certainly may be true of some of them. They have, after all, been fooled twice by a man who claims to live by the words of Gomer Pyle, yet is stymied by any attempt to repeat them.

But it's not stupidity, or anything even closely resembling it. It's a lethal mixture of wishful thinking and good old-fashioned gullibility.

The time has come for these people to come in from the cold. I certainly recognize that reality isn't as attractive as the utopian world built upon the fertile ground of the Republican imagination, where fallen American soldiers exist only as an abstract, deficits truly don't matter, and congressional oversight exists in name only. In fact, to borrow the title of perhaps the most overrated film in living memory, reality bites.

But it has one advantage over Iraqi WMDs and ties between Iraq and al Qaeda--- It exists.

The time has come for even the most staunch of Republicans to admit that the war in Iraq is a failure beyond what even the makers of "Waterworld" and the taste engineers behind New Coke could imagine--- For their failures, grand though they may have been, were not accompanied by a high and steadily rising body count.

The question is this. How many more American lives are we to throw away on an ill-planned, misbegotten misadventure that has proven to be a failure on every level? And exactly what is it that you hope to accomplish by sending more Americans to their deaths?

And now, the White House is cranking up Ye Olde PR Machine for an invasion of Iran. Because, you know, things are going so swimmingly in our other war zones. Last month set a new record for civilian deaths in Iraq, and John McCain, a member of the party that complains any time we talk to the UN, has just complained that NATO isn't doing enough in Afghanistan to avenge an attack on our soil. Because, you know, it's their responsibility to pick up the slack pursuing the people that attacked us so we could move personnel and equipment into a nation that had nothing to do with it.

Attacking Iraq as a response to the 9/11 attacks makes every bit as much sense as if FDR had attacked Pago Pago in response to Pearl Harbor. The only question is how many lives we're willing to throw away simply to avoid admitting that this nation made a mistake that cost the first 3,113 their lives.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've been told that if I save the cheerleader, I can save the world. I really must figure out what that means.

Al Franken

As I write this, he's wrapping up his final Air America show and announcing his candidacy for the US Senate in 2008. He'll be running against Norm Coleman, who likely wouldn't have had a job these last six years had Paul Wellstone's corpse been allowed to stay on the ticket (It certainly could have beaten Fritz Mondale had there been a primary).

I wasn't the biggest fan of his (Or any other) Air America show, But I'm looking forward to his Senate run. I'm particularly interested in watching the Republicans try to play the "celebrity" card--- You know, where they villify a Harvard graduate radio host, yet fail to see a problem with an Austrian born movie star as governor.

Go Al.

***UPDATE***

Campfield Part II

After seeing my post about Rep. Campfield's insane idea to issue death certificates every time there's an abortion (Has he given any thoughts to what name to put on them?), my good friend The West Tennessee Liberal sent me a clip of our new state song.

Enjoy!

The Golden Bushie Award For Outstanding Acheivement in Stupidity...

... goes to Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO-2) for the "Davy Crockett" argument against the anti-escalation bill.

In the future, Akin would do well to remember that, when you're looking for an argument to make, and you find one that hasn't been made before, there's sometimes a good reason.

Could you picture Davy Crockett at the Alamo looking at his Blackberry getting a message from Congress? “Davy Crockett, we support you. The only thing is we are not going to send any troops.” I’m sure that would really be impressive to Davy Crockett.

Via Think Progress

Now, please join me in song...

Davy, Davy Crockett

King of the wild frontier...

Because Every Sperm Is Sacred, Rep. Campfield.

Sometimes, you just read something that leaves you laughing uncontrollably.

The Bush Administration's rationalization of... Well, anything.

The phrase "Poo Poo Platter" on a Chinese restaurant menu.

Or, for me, it was the post "Compare and Contrast" by the lovely Brittney over at "Nashville Is Talking".

It seems that State Representative Stacy Campfield's bill to require a death certificate to be issued every time there's an abortion has actually shown not only the state how foolish he can be--- But even the national blogosphere has picked it up.

I want to like your bill requiring that death certificates be issued for aborted embryo-Americans, but I don't see the logic behind it. Why limit it to the aborted? Don't miscarried embryo-Americans and blastocyst-Americans deserve death certificates too. And what about those little snowflake-Americans? Shouldn't the little frozen bastards get death certificates when someone drops their petri dishes? - Jesus General

Personally, I think Campfield's bill demonstrates not just a fanatical devotion to one issue--- But it also demonstrates a lamentable lack of ambition.

I mean, why stop there? Why not issue one for every spermatazoa spilled in a way that's not conducive to insemination?

We could require last rites to be administered every time a thirteen-year-old spanks the monkey. The crime scene tape industry would benefit big time-- They could develop and market crime scene tape small enough to wrap around condoms and Kleenexes.

But hey, don't think all the legal burden is on men too. What about women that allow unfertilized eggs to die every month? Yes, part of the new monthly ritual can be calling the coroner out to process the paperwork.

Okay, everyone sing the new state song with me!

Every sperm is sacred...
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

The Story of A.H. and J.G.W.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of tough child pornography laws. I love watching the pathetic pervs get busted on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series. And if you are an adult exploiting children, I'm much, much happier with you behind bars. In fact, if you even feel the slightest temptation to sexually abuse a child or give money to the producers of child pornography, I would humbly invite you--- Nay, beg you to take one in the head for the team and enrich this planet by departing it immediately.

But surely, child pornography laws were not intended for this.

A.H. (So identified because court documents include only initials when dealing with minors), a sixteen-year-old girl, and her seventeen-year-old boyfriend identified only as "J.G.W" took nude photos of themselves engaged in an unspecified sex act at her house and then sent them to his personal email address. Neither showed the pictures to anyone else.

Court records don't indicate just how they were caught, but they were---And they were both charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. J.G.W was also charged with possession of child pornography because of the contents of his email account.

Under Florida law, a teenager cannot be declared a delinquent for having sex with another teenager. No matter how you may feel about teen sex, that law is just. The law is designed around preventing, and failing that, punishing the sexual exploitation of a child by an adult.

The Florida State Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the charges against A.H. and J.G.W. should stand. Judge James Wolf wrote in his majority opinion that "the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material" despite there being no evidence that either party was trying to disseminate the photographs. More people saw the photographs because these two children were dragged through the court system than would ever have seen it had they been left to their own devices.

Funny how that worked out, huh?

From Judge Phillip Padovano's dissent:

"If a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for having sex with another minor, as the court held in B.B., it follows that a minor cannot be criminally prosecuted for taking a picture of herself having sex with another minor. Although I do not condone the child's conduct in this case, I cannot deny that it is private conduct. Because there is no evidence that the child intended to show the photographs to third parties, they are as private as the act they depict...

The critical point in this case is that the child intended to keep the photographs private. She did not attempt to exploit anyone or to embarrass anyone. I think her expectation of privacy in the photographs was reasonable. "

Padovano gets it right.

This Weeks Ivins Award Goes To...

Every week, we here at The Freedonian will present the Molly Ivins Award for excellence in verbal wit.

This week's winner is Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY). During a recent hearing, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was bemoaning the shortage of Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun, and Urdu translators. The military, of course, felt like it had such an embarrassment of riches in the translation department that they could expel 37 Arabic language translators for being gay.

And so Congressman Ackerman came up with this Ivins Award-winning quip:

”For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are the terrorists. They’re very brave with the terrorists, and if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”

Congressman, this blessed award, named in honor of one of the greatest friends and practitioners that free speech has ever had, goes to you.

I Can't Tell--- Does This Look Like Farsi?

Sean Paul Kelley at The Agonist raises an interesting question about the "evidence" being presented that implicates Iran in smuggling weapons to Iraqi insurgents...

Wouldn't the numbers be in Farsi? According to my research, the number "81" in Farsi would look more like "^|". (The characters in the lower right corner of each key in the picture below are the Farsi characters).

So... Why would Iranian munitions manufacturers write in English when manufacturing mortars for fellow Farsi speakers?

Later versions of the story are saying that the mortar in the picture might have come from Pakistan. Looking at the picture of a Pakistani mortar, it makes sense.

"It's Not the Jeans That Make You Look Fat. It's Your Ass That Makes You Look Fat."

Russert: Howie Kurtz, I want to ask you about the Scooter Libby trial. William Powers in the National Journal has an interesting column where he thinks that the fact that journalists have to testify is good because it will open up, in terms of the public being able to see how reporters cultivate relationships to get information. You have a different view of that.

Kurtz: Yeah, I certainly don’t think it’s a good thing at all and I think the reputation of journalists in this Libby trial have taken a hit. I was in the courtroom when you testified Tim, and you looked uncomfortable during five hours of cross examination, cautious, hesitant, as anybody would be. No journalist likes to be on the witness stand, when, in this case, Libby’s lawyer was trying to take small statements you had made and find discrepancies and ask you why, on the one hand, you were willing to talk to the FBI about your conversation with Scooter Libby but you resisted a subpoena. You said that it was because you didn’t want to get into a prosecutorial fishing expedition.

The problem for us, as a profession, is this: When journalists get up there and testify, leaving aside the First Amendment question, it looks to people like, out there, like we have become too cozy with Senior Bush Administration officials, not so we can ferret out information about national security, not so we can find out about corruption, but in this particular case, in some cases, acting as a conduit for White House efforts to put out negative information about Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband, a big critic of the prewar intelligence. And I think that the people out there who don’t follow this all too closely think that we have become part of the club, too much the insiders, and that is a problem for journalism.

Meet the Press, 2/11/07

Gee… How could the American public get so mistaken a notion? Whatever would give them the idea that the media is in bed wit