Pork Chops

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:
*snip*
---regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives.

Now there is a better way:

Well, OK...

If Atrios wants us to show off our chaps, that's fine.



NO GOOSING!

Update: Oh, he said "chops." Nevermind.



Update: If you like schadenfreude with your blog frivolity, go gaze in wonder at the spectacular mess at the Washington Times.

If you say so

Update:

If I may add a more content laden aspect to this post, SteveLG in comments noticed that Josh Marshall has some pictures Mitt Romney will find more uncomfortable than his underwear on a hot August afternoon.

Fresh Thread

Out for the evening. If anyone else in the band wants to step forward and show off their chops, feel free.

How To Be A Good Token Liberal

Joe Klein provides the template.

Shorter Ad Nags

Ann Coulter is like Hillary Clinton and it's unclear whether "faggot" is actually an offensive remark.

Media Matters

From Jamison Foser.

Words I'm Not Sure Joe Klein Really Understands

Looking over his little list, which comes across like something written by a teenage D-List "Youstabee" during the peak glory of the Summer of War, it occurs to me that Joe Klein is not very bright and doesn't actually understand many of the words he uses. I'm not sure he understands the following:

United States
Responsibilities
Capitalism
Democracy
Corporations
Intolerant
"People of faith"
Liberal
Moderates
Conservatives
Extremist

Blogger’s Style Guide for Civility and Seriousness

Finally, the Editors explains it all.

This document should be the basis of a new group, "Online Civility," with board members Jeff Goldstein, Josh Trevino, Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Joe Klein, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Reynolds. All bloggers who fail to adhere to it will have their accounts deleted, if so decided by a majority vote by the board members.

Swampland

In this edition, Joe Klein courageously battles the dirty fucking hippies who live in his head and plague his nightmares.

Good Boy, Adam

Nice job, Ad Nags, writing a story about CPAC and Coulter without bother to tell anyone what she said.

Still, I'm sure some anonymous unidentifiable blog commenters or low level campaign staffers somewhere, sometime, have said something offensive.

The funny thing about Ann Coulter is that conservatives thinks she bothers liberals. That is, in fact, why the like her. But she doesn't bother us at all. I don't care what Ann Coulter says about anything. What she embodies is the standards of the "liberal media," where conservatives are called back again and again, and literally nothing they say can have any negative impact on their careers. And that's what bothers us.

The NBA has a lot more integrity than NBC.

Morning Thread

Rock on.

Eschaton After Dark

Free legal .mp3 download of Michael Penn's Walter Reed here.

Overnight

Fresh hot smug extremism tomorrow.

Thresh Fred

With bonus gross: Glenn Beck, with the smarm going up to eleven. Yuck. Via Hesiod in comments.

Open Thread

By demand, until the Boss returns.

Although, I have to say I find this coming from Joe Klein rather rich:

Atrios may or may not be an ideological extremist--I was wrong to say he was, since I don't know enough about him--but he sure is a purveyor of extreme and terminally smug rhetoric.

I do declare, the irony has me looking for my fainting couch.

(I'm not giving him a link -- again)

A Play

By The Editors Sifu Tweety.

Coulter at CPAC

Which will demonstrate, once again, that there's nothing a conservative can say which would cause the "liberal media" to decide that she wasn't an appropriate person to promote:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

Gates Presser

Army Secretary has resigned, and new head of Walter Reed announced soon.

"The problems of Walter Reed appear to be problems of leadership."

This is the first time in the entire Bush adminstration that we've had anything which even felt remotely like a genuine "accountability" moment. Of course, that's no guarantee things will improve.

Support The Troops II

Waxman:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wants to ask Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman about a contract to manage the medical center awarded to a company that had documented troubles fulfilling a government contract to deliver ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Pentagon has refused to allow Weightman to testify. Waxman's staff has confirmed the congressman has issued his first subpoena as a committee chairman this session to legally compel Weightman's testimony.

According to a letter from Waxman to Weightman posted today on the committee's Web site, the chairman believes the Walter Reed contract may have pushed dozens of health care workers to leave jobs at the troubled medical center, which he says in turn threatened the quality of care for hundreds of military personnel receiving treatment there.

Weightman had been slated to testify before Congress on Monday. The Army has tried to withdraw him from the hearing. Waxman's office confirmed the congressman plans to force the officer to appear by issuing a subpoena for his testimony.

Support The Troops

Perhaps if the wankosphere actually gave a shit about something other than hating liberals they'd swear a bit more often.

Wanker of the Day

Joe Klein.

Kiley

Lieberman likes him, so you know he's awful.

Scandals

idiots.

Fresh Thread

enjoy

Radio Fun

Glenn Greenwald coming up on the Sam Seder show.

..oops, a repeat from a few days ago, but still worth listening to.

Swampland

In this edition, we discover Joe Klein is a vodka drinker.

Actually I link to it because there's a good discussion in the comments.

Moon, Bitches!

Bored with Iraq, Krauthammer says it's time to invade and occupy the moon.

Snark aside, there are a lot of projects we could discuss spending money on had Chuckles and the gang not decided that throwing trillions at Iraq was a cunning plan.

Part of the Holy Books of Wingnuttery

Wingnut obsession with Hillary Clinton's senior college thesis has a long history.

Republican Members of Congress Pressure Now Fired Prosecutor

Okay, it's time for this story to be a big deal.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico pressured the U.S. attorney in their state to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved at least one former Democratic state senator, according to two people familiar with the contacts.

The alleged involvement of the two Republican lawmakers raises questions about possible violations of House of Representatives and Senate ethics rules and could taint the criminal investigation into the award of an $82 million courthouse contract.

The two people with knowledge of the incident said Domenici and Wilson intervened in mid-October, when Wilson was in a competitive re-election campaign that she won by 875 votes out of nearly 211,000 cast.

David Iglesias, who stepped down as U.S. attorney in New Mexico on Wednesday, told McClatchy Newspapers that he believed the Bush administration fired him Dec. 7 because he resisted the pressure to rush an indictment.

According to the two individuals, Domenici and Wilson called to press Iglesias for details of the case.

Wilson was curt after Iglesias was "non-responsive" to her questions about whether an indictment would be unsealed, said the two individuals, who asked not to be identified because they feared possible political repercussions. Rumors had spread throughout the New Mexico legal community that an indictment of at least one Democrat was sealed.

Domenici, who wasn't up for re-election, called about a week and a half later and was more persistent than Wilson, the people said. When Iglesias said an indictment wouldn't be handed down until at least December, the line went dead.

Morning Thread

Have some coffee.

Oy

I'd like to say that it appears the Tom Friedman has been possessed by a psychotic nutjob.

But, no, it's just Tom Friedman.

This isn't snark. This is all very sad, deeply disturbing. I actually think the country as a whole has turned back from the abyss of deep mental illness which took hold of our punditocracy and other leaders post-9/11, but their influence remains. "Hat" the troll apparently is Tom Friedman.

I'm not quite sure how to bring us all back.

Late Night

Enjoy.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I'm feeling that Broder bounce.

Over all, Mr. Bush’s job approval remains at one of its lowest points, with 29 percent of all Americans saying they approve of the way he is doing his job, compared with 34 percent at the end of October. Sixty-one percent disapproved, compared with 58 percent in October, within the margin of sampling error.

More Thread

Rock on.

...mmm, I see some people can get Hot Soup to load. I can't. odd.

Cold Soup

Fournier has left Hot Soup, which was so lame nobody even bothered to make fun of it. It now appears to have been disappeared from the internets. Let's remember their dream:

HOTSOUP.com is the first online community that joins Opinion Drivers from across the spectrum. The community connects well-known influencers from the worlds of politics, business, religion, and popular culture with influencers who drive opinion at the grassroots and community levels. Harnessing the power of social networking technology, HOTSOUP.com levels the playing field by giving anyone and everyone a voice in how America’s institutions can work better.
TWO GROUPS OF OPINION DRIVERS…

Opinion Drivers are the individuals who, every day, influence their friends, colleagues, and peers. They fall into two categories:

* A relatively small group of Opinion Drivers is the famous personalities whom we read about in newspapers and see on television. They help shape opinion by virtue of their elected offices, access to media, or leadership roles in business and industry. What sets these people apart is their ability to affect public opinion on a grand scale.
* A larger group of Opinion Drivers is the roughly 30 million grassroots influencers we know through our communities: friends, neighbors, PTA members, firefighters, homemakers, small business owners, and non-profit directors to name a few.

Collectively, grassroots Opinion Drivers are an enormous and growing force because Americans place decreasing trust in old-line opinion leaders such as network anchors and politicians; they’re turning to each other for advice and guidance in these fast-changing times. Where is a good place to eat out? What’s the best car to buy? Who’s the best candidate for school board and for president? More and more, Americans are turning to trusted friends and neighbors to answer such questions and manage the crush of information at their fingertips in the info-tech age. If you’ve ever been asked, “Hey, what do you think about…,” then you are probably an Opinion Driver. Welcome to the HOTSOUP.com community.

…CONNECTED BY ONE PLATFORM

Opinion Drivers across the country are losing patience with party lines and PR spin. They recognize the complex challenges America faces and want intelligent discussion and reasoning. They want smart debate, real answers and, most importantly, they want the opportunity to be heard.

Opinion Drivers want access to the personalities who set the national agenda, and conversely, those leaders want direct access to the people who can help them shape public opinion. HOTSOUP.com is that venue.
HOTSOUP.com offers Opinion Drivers:

* "Hot Issues," an area where well-known and grassroots personalities share their opinions on weekly/bi-weekly issues. Community members can engage in interactive discussions on these opinions through discussion boards, and by scoring presentations and posting their own content on the subject via video, text, and imagery.
* "Loops," which community members can create around any issue or interest. These are micro-communities within HOTSOUP.com that allow Opinion Drivers to engage in thoughtful and interactive conversations with people from all over the country. Smart, civil debate is encouraged.
* “Lifestyle & Entertainment,” which is our phrase for the areas on the site where we offer entertainment-driven content including Book Reviews, Breaking News, Polls & Opinions, and Networking with other HOTSOUP.com members. All of these areas support full-motion video and full interactivity including discussion and voting.

HOW WE GOT STARTED

Carter, Chip, Joe and Mike, prominent Democratic strategists, and Mark and Matthew, Republican heavyweights, had successful private sector practices that specialized in helping corporate clients find Opinion Drivers. It was frustrating; the rise of the Internet and other societal trends made Opinion Drivers both more important and harder to reach.

At the same time, Internet veterans Allie, Bart and John were consulting on better ways to reach and engage Opinion Drivers online while simultaneously launching a new social networking site called Sisterwoman.com.

And Ron, one of the country's most respected journalists, was observing his readers' behavior change and co-authoring a book, Applebee's America, about this audience and the community-building potential of the Internet.

Despite representing both sides of the political aisle, Internet media and journalism, we all reached the same conclusion: There is no single place for Opinion Drivers to gather online. That was the day we set out to build HOTSOUP.com.

Cult

Once again, "people of faith" has a very narrow definition.

Adrift in Macau

Oops:

As American intelligence officials back away from key charges about North Korea's nuclear program, there also new questions about whether the Bush administration may have made unverified or exaggerated claims to force a bank in tiny Macau to freeze North Korean financial assets.

Ernst & Young, a global accounting firm, found no evidence that the family-owned Macau bank had facilitated North Korean money-laundering, either by circulating counterfeit U.S. banknotes or by knowingly sheltering illicit earnings of the North Korean government, according to a filing by the bank's American lawyers.

...

The Treasury Department imposed the financial restrictions in September 2005 by charging that the small family-owned bank in the Chinese island enclave had helped North Korea distribute counterfeit U.S. currency and launder other illicit income of the communist state. The Treasury used a little-known provision in the Patriot Act that's intended to combat money laundering by terrorist groups to pressure the bank.

The 2005 action, threatening to exclude the bank from international finance, led to a run on the bank and plunged it into government receivership. The North Korean regime's leaders responded by walking out of multilateral negotiations about their nuclear weapons program and refusing to return unless the U.S. government agreed to lift the restrictions.

The allegations against the bank weren't levied in court, but under an unusual provision of the Patriot Act that provides for an administrative procedure. The tiny bank wasn't permitted to see the evidence of the accusations or defend itself in court, lawyers who've worked on similar cases said. The provisions allow the United States to freeze a foreign bank out of the U.S. financial system, which virtually prohibits it from doing business in the world financial network.

Bygones.

More Like This

Rep. Miller



"It's hard to change your stripes. Some of you will be wearing stripes."

Employee Free Choice Act passed the House.

Fitz

CNN sez attorneys (Added: and jurors) called to judge's chambers at 4:30.

...nothing exciting, apparently. Question about dictionary use, and jury wants to go home early tomorrow.

Academics

Despite David Horowitz's obsession with liberal academia, the fact is that there are pretty strong disincentives in academia, especially pre-tenure, for people to participate in the public sphere in anyway. Mark Schmitt:

Obviously, there's no factory for creating new Schlesingers or Galbraiths (although those two families do pretty well) but anything that can be done to change the system of incentives for young academics or would-be academics so that there are rewards to making relevant contributions to public life, rather than incrementally advancing some narrow question within their field, would be good.

And needless to say, creating those rewards for a certain kind of academic is one thing the right has done quite well. People don't suddenly wake up one day and become Paul Krugman. They need networks, encouragement, and places to publish. Like, for example, this magazine.

It varies from field to field and institution to institution, but in general doing anything to be a "public intellectual" is frowned upon if for no other reason (and there are others) than that it takes time away from "serious work."

And when academic experts, for example, go on NPR or whatever to discuss a particular issue, they're generally inclined to stick very narrowly to their area of expertise and not consider the wider political environment in which the particular issue exists (whatever the politics of the particular academic). This feeds into our side's "hack gap" problem, as they're often matched up with conservative think tankers whose job it is to understand very well the political contours of whatever debate they're engaged in.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I've missed a few polls lately, but needless to say the Broder Bounce has not appeared, not even in the latest Fox poll which has him at 34%.



In other results, a plurality (46%) support a vote "against funding the war altogether to try to force a withdrawal," a conclusion they arrived at all by themselves.



(ht pony boy)

Walter Reed Commander Gone

Effective this morning, sez CNN.

Your Liberal Media

Still not liberal.

QOTD

"North Korea has nuclear weapons today because George W. Bush is a stupid, stupid man."

And, it must be added, because this stupidity was aided by his numerous enablers in the media.

Bring It On

I do wonder what Inky editorial page editor, Chris "Philadelphia's Own David Broder" Satullo thinks of his new overlords' hiring decisions.


It sure is a bold move, adding more conservative writers to a paper in an overwhelmingly Democratic town. Admittedly I'm looking forward to the writings of St. Rick the Simple. I need a good laugh.

Cyborg Prude

While Glenn Reynolds' faux-libertarian schtick was always a transparent joke, he at least used to explicitly reject (if not loudly) the prudish social conservatism found in other parts of his conservative movement. His evolution from rebel libertarian to language police has been hilarious to watch.

Civility

The Ole Perfesser is very uncivil.

Anything But Clinton

Those of us who can remember all the way back to 2001 know that the original "Bush doctrine" was known as "Anything But Clinton." Basically, if Clinton had anything to do with it, it was time to scrap it. This included a lovely little agreement which had prevented North Korea, charter member of the "axis of evil," from obtaining nuclear weapons. Bush scrapped the agreement based on the idea that Clinton got tricked because the North Koreans were pursuing a parallel uranium program. Agreement scrapped, NK gets its plutonium back, makes some bombs.

And that supposed uranium program? Eh, not so much.

Wasted

Looking forward to the conservative outrage machine showing some consistency.

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

In February, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the lives of troops in Iraq as having been "wasted" but then apologized a day later for making what he called "a slip of the tongue" that he said was not meant to diminish their sacrifice.

Michelle? Are McCain's "nutroots" showing?

Morning Thread

Enjoy.

Mac vs. PC: The Commercial

No I don't want to fight the hardware wars, but after months of watching the various Apple bought Mac vs. PC commercials with Justin Long and John Hodgman I'm completely convinced I want to own a PC. I know Long (Mac) is supposed to play the hipster and Hodgman (PC) the dork, but Hodgman comes across as a lot more memorable, entertaining, and interesting. More than that, unless you're paying complete attention it's rarely obvious just who is supposed to be the personification of which computer.

Breaking the Law

Last I checked, lying to Congress was a crime. So this stuff about the fired prosecutors has likely moved from the political CYA to the criminal CYA.

A senior Justice Department official acknowledged yesterday that a top federal prosecutor in Arkansas was removed to make room for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, but he said that six other U.S. attorneys were fired for "performance-related" issues.

That's where they screwed up.

Memories of Jay

Is he ever right?

Thread

Because of the goddamn 9/11 conspiracy noise in the last thread. Bleah.

Even More Thread

Rock harder damnit.

Fresh Thread

Rock on.

Damn Libby Jurors

I'd made it until today without obsessively checking for the verdict, but now I've started to. Hurry up! News as it happens, as always, at FDL...

Craziest

That might be the craziest Cohen Bush/Gore column, but my personal favorite from election 2000 was actually a Bush/Lieberman column.

When last I left you (before going into a vacation hibernation) I had written in admiration of Sen. Joseph Lieberman--especially his fidelity to his religious values. Since then Lieberman has triggered a national debate on the role of religion in politics. I still admire the man, but fidelity to my own values compels me to say I wonder what in the world he's talking about.

I wonder the same thing about many other politicians who make very public expressions of faith and implore us all to do the same. Theirs is a very sunny religion, one that seems to ignore not only much of recent history, like the Holocaust, but a good deal of what is happening right now--everything from abductions and decapitations in the Philippines to the mutilation of children by Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front. For those events, I can only echo what Robert F. Kennedy was overheard crying out when his brother, John, was assassinated: "Why, God?"

My own continuing crisis of faith is beside the point. But the marriage of religion to politics is another matter. I thought it was in bad taste for Lieberman to go on and on about religion. But I thought it downright smug of him to suggest that God somehow favors America above all nations. The United States is a fortunate and exceptional nation, which I love dearly, but it is no more divine than any other.

"Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world," Lieberman told the annual convention of B'nai B'rith late last month.

Is that so? Did God choose slavery, which persisted in this country long after it was outlawed elsewhere? Did God choose to nearly eradicate the American Indian? Did God choose to incarcerate the Japanese during World War II? Where was God when blacks were being lynched and bigots planted bombs in southern churches, killing innocent little girls? Are these the models God wanted for the rest of the world?

Lieberman's statement is preposterously false and lacks humility. In these and other statements, he and like-minded politicians not only have had God virtually raising a hand at a naturalization ceremony, but they have imbued religion with a power it does not have. They suggest that if only more people were religious and allowed to pray before football games or whatever, we would be a far better nation--and, surely, all games would end in a tie.

The punchline? The statement Cohen attributed to Lieberman was actually said by candidate George W. Bush.

Correction: In my column of Sept. 6 I mistakenly attributed the quotation, "Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world" to Joseph Lieberman. In fact, the quotation was from George W. Bush.

Tweety Slobbers on the Clenis

The man has an obsession.

Speaking of Blogger Ethics

Apparently I'm the only person who is bothered by this, but it's probably inappropriate for "Clinton strategist" James Carville to maintain his pundit seat at CNN during the primary season.

Garbage

Nouriel Roubini on the housing market:

So whenever you hear the spin about the sub-prime meltdown not being such a big deal as “sub-prime mortgages” are only 6% of the housing market beware of such misleading spins. Properly measured sub-prime and near sub-prime and effectively sub-prime (because of creative accounting) mortgages accounted for almost 50% of all originations last year. So the mountain of “garbage” and “trash” that has been piling up in this sub-prime carnage includes a good half of new mortgages created in recent times. And the meltdown of these mortgages – both those that are formally sub-prime and those that are effectively sub-prime – will create a massive credit crunch in short order. At the end of the day “garbage” is garbage, whatever you name it. What is labeled as “Prime Garbage” stinks as much as the “Subprime Garbage”. And if it walks, ducks and quacks like garbage it passes the smell test of being garbage. Some of that garbage may rot more or faster than the rest but the overall state of the mortgage and housing market is the worst in decades.

Also, note that with new home sales down 16.4% in January ( the biggest drop since 1994 as reported today) and housing starts down another 14% in January alone, both the demand and the supply side of the housing market are in literal free fall and collapse. The only things that are mushrooming in the housing market are cancellations (in the 30 to 40% range for major home builders) and the stock of unsold new and old homes that is at historically unprecedented highs. All this means home prices headed sharply south in the months ahead. As I argued last summer (see here and here and here) this is the worst housing recession in the last five decades. In a long paper with Christian Menegatti that I will publish next week I will flesh out in much detail the arguments on why the housing recession is nowhere close to bottoming out and why the housing recession will get much worse before it reaches any bottom.

Definitely Time for a Blogger Ethics Panel

For years it's been news, an almost obligatory reference in any article about bloggers, that Markos got a few bucks from the Dean campaign, something he fully disclosed at the time. Then it was big news that Markos had a friend who worked for Mark Warner which, again, wasn't exactly a big secret and the mere fact of this friendship was an existential taint of some sort.

Now the hot insiders at the Politico are letting paid flacks for politicians write articles without disclosing that information. And it's us unethical bloggers who have issues.

What a bunch of wankers.

Speaking of Teefers

Yes, this story is absolutely horrible. Aside from the issues of poverty and lack of insurance, there is also the basic question of why dental care/insurance are seen as something distinct from normal medical care.

Dental Problems

Maybe their wisdom teeth are growing into their brain stems?

So glad they're supporting the troops.

Even Better Times

Remember when Rick Santorum was the unstoppable force?

Duh

Bill Clinton is an incredibly popular person and only our Beltway press could imagine that he would somehow be a "liability" to his wife.

Though, to be fair, the subtext of the "concerns" of the Beltway chatterers is that they're really talking not about Bill Clinton, but about the Clenis, and the implication is that Bill will be a liability because the Clenis, an unstoppable mystical force, might get up to no good.

Why Bill Clinton's past infidelity is more relevant to his wife's candidacy than Rudy Giuliani's own infidelity is to his own candidacy is an exercise left to the reader.

Muzzled

Because to the Bush administration, reality is unimportant, just the perception of it.

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Morning Thread

Enjoy.

Olbermann is Killing Democracy

It's true.

Even More Thread

I got nothin'.

Fresh Thread

Rock on.

Wanker of the Day

Richard Cohen.

Glitch

CNN sez the sudden dropoff in the market today was due to the fact that their normal computer system was lagging way behind so they switched to a backup system which was more caught up. The "sudden" decline wasn't actually so sudden, the market had been declining but nobody knew.

Fortunately all my money is in FCOJ futures.

Stupid Blogger

Dow goes down, blogger does down.

- 286.64

Wall Street unhappy.


...er -510.15. We're entering what the fuck territory.

The Least Important Job At Fox

It's been almost two months since they updated their list of American troops killed in Iraq.

Blogger Ethics Panel

Looks like we might need to have another one.

Person, Not Biography

I agree that the biographies of the candidates are much much much much less important than our political journalists would have us believe. Still, they spend a lot of time on them. And they've spent a lot of time discussing whether an African-American or a woman will have a hard time attracting votes. Meanwhile, opinion polls tell us that most people are fine with voting for people who fit those descriptions, but that people are less fine voting for an old guy, a twice-divorced guy, or a Mormon. The media coverage of these issues has been backwards relative to what the polls say. In decreasing order, people happy to vote for: black guy, chick, Mormon, twice-divorced guy, old guy. Judging by the news coverage you'd think the first three are the most troublesome for voters, when opinion polls tell us that it's actually the last two.

Meanwhile

CNN:

18 children killed in bombing at soccer field.

Laura Bush:

Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.

...and 10 killed in bombings in Baghdad. And 3 US troops killed.

1, 2, 3, ...

JMM:

But this is a level of folly that transcends all of that: at the most basic level, the folks running the show can't even decide who's side we're on. There's no real strategy here or grand aim or even stable aim -- more like a rather panicked set of improvisations aimed at finding a way to retrospectively justify the mistakes that got us here in the first place.

Short version of the story: We toppled minority Sunni leadership of Iraq, installing majority Shia leadership in power. Now, according to Hersh, we're funding Sunni interests elsewhere in the region to prevent the rise of Shia dominance.


Thanks wise old men of Washington, for putting the grownups back in charge.

Morning Thread

Enjoy.

Today in Sociopathy

Joe Lieberman edition.

Overnight

My tribute to The Editors:

Today in Sociopathy

First Lady edition:

Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.

Howie Hearts Michelle

And the Post loves them some right wing bloggers.

Like Domenech, Malkin is not a serious person. In fact, she's ambitiously unserious, and her work is treated accordingly by most people in senior positions within the mainstream media (except at Fox News and the Post). That's because her daily blog is built on a foundation of hatred that literally knows no bounds -- namely, Malkin's unbridled, name-calling disdain for Democrats, peace activists, journalists, immigrants, and Muslims. Yet inside the Post newsroom, or more specifically, at the Post Style desk, Malkin is seen as a rising media star worthy of focused, fawning attention.

It would be one thing if Malkin were currently enjoying her victory lap -- if she'd been dead-on about Iraq and about the defeatists on the left who didn't have the foresight to back a wildly successful invasion of Iraq. But, of course, she's not. Malkin is the field general for a squad of bitter pro-war dead-enders who lash out online against anyone who dares speak the truth about the war. She has been wrong about Iraq in every conceivable way, with a losing streak dating back more than 50 straight months. The consequences for having habitually botched the most important policy issue of the last decade? She's taken to lunch by a Washington Post reporter (the same reporter Malkin once derided as incompetent), who then splashes a friendly profile in the paper while carefully refusing to inform readers about Malkin's glaring ignorance and unhinged loathing.

More Thread

Enjoy.

Memories

You know, the wingnutosphere was always populated by lunatic morons, but back in the old days we actually felt obliged to engage them. Now we just mock them.

Much better.

Ney Ney

Apparently my BFF Ney Ney had a nice racket going.

More Thread

I got nothin'.

Fresh Thread

Rock On.

Again?

They say there are 3 hundred billion new blogs born every second, or something like that, and I think Ticky Tacky is responsible for half of them:

joshua.trevino.at is offline.

Something big is coming in several months.

Contact:
joshua
--at--
trevino
--dot--
at

The Lecture Genre

Aside from the expected BoBosity, can we all agree (it'd make David Broder feel good!) to fight what appears to be our society's general impulse to tell people how they're supposed to raise their kids. I'm not talking about intelligent discussions/advice about good practices, I'm talking about the general idea that the specifics of how you're raising your kids, over and above a basic welfare concern, is any of my damn business. It isn't.

Similarly, can we fight the "it's my right to tell you how you should spend your money" impulse, too? Again, I'm not talking about advice about good financial practices, but the micromanaging of peoples' consumption habits.

And now I'm going to violate both by telling people to stop spending money on having kids. They're expensive! Give it to charity instead!

People Support Murtha

Washington Post poll doesn't support anti-Murtha Washington Post position, so they don't report it.

Radio Fun

Eric Boehlert will be on the Majority Report in a few minutes.


...or Sam Seder Show, or whatever we're calling it this week.

Agreeing With Stu

Indeed. Republicans want to continue the war and Democrats want to end it. It's that simple.

Any other debate is about what the best method to get George Bush to end the war is. I think even now too many Democrats are a bit stupid about the political reality - people hate George Bush and people hate the war - and are scared they're going to be painted as traitors by the wingnut noise machine. But that's about politics and strategy, not the desired result. Democrats want to end the war, Republicans want to continue it. If some Republicans want to defect and join with the Democrats to end the war, good for them, but that doesn't change the fact that Democrats want to end the war and Republicans want to continue it.

Make it partisan. The Republicans are. Let them have their war.

Caucasians, and Negroes, and Wolves, Oh My!

There's some weirdass thinking deep in the heart of wingnuttery than even I wasn't aware of.

Libby Jury Problem

Apparently a juror got some exposure to the media and used the information in deliberations. No word yet on whether what the juror was exposed to was one of the 5000 "Free Scooter!" billboard ads placed by the Washington Post Co.


...Jane's there now, so click over to there for the play by play.


...one juror dismissed. Continuing deliberations with 11.

Real ID

I actually don't know much about this law and therefore have no opinion on it, but what does frustrate me is this belief that identity verification is an incredibly important part of airline security. Identity verification is a means of verifying that you are who you say you are. It is not a method to detect whether you are a person who wants to blow up a plane. This obsession with identification as a preventative security measure is at best wrongheaded and at worst, as I suspect, simply a convenient excuse for a separate agenda.


...semi-related is Lou Dobbs' obsession with illegal immigrants opening bank accounts or having credit cards or whatever. It is true that the ability to do these things makes it easier to reside in this country illegally, but it's also true that meeting legal residency and employment requirements are not actually legal requirements for having a credit card or a bank account. Mrs. Atrios has a bank account in a country where she isn't legally allowed to work or stay for an extended period of time. Lots of people have foreign accounts. Our system of international finance and commerce rather ensures that this is the case.

Wanker of the Day

Joe Lieberman.

The reason our mission in Iraq has proven to be so disastrous and corrupt is very simple -- the advocates and architects of that war are completely corrupt, inept, and deceitful. Recognizing this fact and ceasing to accord people like this with respect and credibility is infinitely more important than any specific debates over particular policy or strategic questions. Everywhere Joe Lieberman goes, he should be asked by journalists why anyone should listen to anything he says, or believe anything he says, in light of his history of deceitful statements and tragically wrong assertions, beginning with his 2005 Op-Ed which today he completely repudiates while pretending he never said any of it.

These are people who are completely bereft of judgment and integrity, and their behavior has wreaked incalculable and arguably unprecedented damage on our country. Holding them accountable, and recognizing them for what they are, is critical not only for cleansing our deeply poisoned political system, but also for averting identical, or worse, tragedies in the very near future.

Shorter The Editors

It used to be that you could say literally anything about killing lots of people who reside in the general vicinity of the Middle East, but now if you do there's a 1 in 10000 chance someone might suggest you've crossed the line.

Wise Old Morons

Thers on Unity08:

The trouble with politics, they argue, is that people disagree. Their brilliant solution to this problem is to agree on everything, thus ending all disagreement. Shazam! It is truly a wonder that nobody has ever thought of this before.

Morning Thread

Enjoy.

Overnight

Rock on.

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

We're In Trouble

Indeed.

Moral Outrage From Moral Lepers

Sorry, I'm busy doing the little I can to make sure the Reynolds-endorsed US-sponsored civilian death squads in Iran don't become a reality to write posts about things I've never heard about.

wankers.

Afternoon Thread

Beware of wankers bearing gifts.

Wanker of the Day

Franklin Foer.

More Mitt

Shakes has a good take.

Anyway, as I said before, Romney's candidacy provides a useful chance to have a broader and more honest discussion about the intersection of religion and politics. "People of Faith," despite its general acceptance as an inclusive term, is actually an exclusionary one, not just against nonbelievers like myself, but also against other non-dominant religions in which the concept of "faith," while usually present in some form, doesn't play a central role. Faith is not a uniquely Christian concept, but it has elevated importance in Christianity. Witness "Faithful Democrats," a self-described "online Christian community."

Romney's going to find out that it's not important whether you're a "person of faith." What's important is that you're a person of the right faith. It's time to be honest about that. People believe different stuff, that stuff is important to some people, your identification with a particular religious tribe says something about your beliefs. I wish people didn't think that such beliefs were especially important characteristics of candidates, but the fact is they do. I wish our political and opinion leaders (and religious ones, too) were trying to convince people that such things shouldn't be important, but mostly they've been doing the opposite.

Meanwhile

Over there:

A suicide bomber killed at least 41 people and wounded another 46 outside a university in northeast Baghdad on Sunday.

Iraq's interior ministry said the bomber was wearing a vest packed with explosives.

He detonated the bomb when guards stopped him near the entrance to the business studies school, which is part of Mustansiriyah University, police said.

The same facility in Baghdad's Talbiyah neighbourhood, a mostly Shia district was hit by a series of explosions last month, including twin car bombs and a suicide blast that killed 70 people.

Fake Republican Scandals

Yes, this is incredibly stupid. God our journalists just get worse and worse.

Sunday Bobbleheads

Document the atrocities:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D).

THIS WEEK: Rice and former president Jimmy Carter.

FACE THE NATION: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).

MEET THE PRESS: Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

LATE EDITION: Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Reps. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and former secretaries of state Madeleine K. Albright and Henry Kissinger.

Overnight

By popular demand.