Liberal press? What liberal press?

President Bush was "caught off guard" and "stumped" during his press conference yesterday by a hard-charging, no-holds-barred investigative reporter who asked him about some guy in Jordan who was supposedly arrested and charged with "slander" for giving a speech on why Palestinians boycott American goods and services.

Well, a few things come to mind after reading this article. First, the reporter who asked the question didn't know what the hell he was talking about (surprise!) because, according to The Washington Post,

(Jordanian) government officials said at the time of his arrest that the charges against him were related to his contention that the Jordanian government was buying U.S. weapons for use against its own people. At the time of his arrest, Hattar said he did not mention Jordan in his speech. But in the following question period, he said he used Jordan as an example of developing countries buying U.S. weapons for use against "their own people."

In other words, he wasn't charged with slandering the United States. Hell, that's no crime, anyway. If slandering the U.S. were a crime, Jacques Chirac would be serving a 2 to 20 hitch.

Second, Palestinians boycott American goods and services not because they don't want to buy them, but because they can't afford them. They spend all their time, energy and money shooting and hacking each other to death and occasionally trying to blow Israeli schoolkids to pieces.

Third, and far more cynical and disturbing than a semi-ignorant reporter asking a meaningless, ill-informed question, is the contention by the Post that President Bush was "caught off-guard" and "stumped". Really? Well, if I had been there, I could have said, "Thank you, Mr. President. What happened to my cat?" Or maybe, "Thank you, Mr. President. When will we be getting an automatic traffic control signal (that's a stoplight, for you dummies) at the corner of Oak and Jackson?" Or perhaps, "Thank you Mr. President. When will Rudy Giuliani get that molar drilled and filled?"

Does anyone in their right mind think that President Bush should have any idea about the legal troubles of some Palestinian blow-hard in Jordan or about the fate of my cat or about the stoplight installation at Oak and Jackson or about Rudy's next dental appointment? Well, yes, someone does. The liberal press.

How about this? "President Bush was asked a question at yesterday's news conference and he was unaware of the issue to which reporter (insert name of idiot and idiot's employer) was referring. So, the Post did some checking and discovered the following;...".

But no, the president must be labeled, "caught off-guard" and "stumped". Just as poorly informed about about some ordinary Jordanian's legal problems as he is about my cat.

So what?

Big yawn. This story says that UC Berkeley is as liberal or more liberal than ever before.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

(It's from the San Fransisco Chronicle, so; grain of salt, grain of salt.)

Andrew Sullivan says it righteously.

When I first began to meander around the blogosphere, my first stop was Drudge. His site provides a long list of links to many varied sources, one of whom is Andrew Sullivan. I followed that link several times and I liked what I read. When I launched my own blog, Sullivan was at the top of my blogroll, position number 1.

Sullivan's was probably the first blog that I ever visited, and I visited it daily. However, I found that, over time, during the early and mid part of 2004, he became so increasingly weepy and screechy about Abu Ghraib, gay marriage, Bush, Abu Ghraib, gay marriage, Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, gay marriage, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum that I stopped reading his blog. After his, in my opinion, weasel job on support for Kerry in lieu of Bush, I removed his link from my blogroll. "Take that!", says I.

In total ignorance of the old saw "my enemy is my enemy for fucking ever" (Hu Flung Poo, Manchuria, 10,001 B.C.), or perhaps in spite of it, he writes in the Sunday Times an opinion piece that is worth reading. No that is not strong enough to convey my opinion about his opinion. Go now! Read it immediately! More !!!!!!'s. Ok, get the idea?

Gawwwd, I hate to admit this, but the man is not only incisive but dead-on right.

But, honestly, what does it say that a leading academic finds the mere positing of an empirical theory of a complex problem something that makes her "physically ill"? And to leap immediately from Summers's subtle question to the crudest accusations of sexism is a form of emotional blackmail. It's a sublime example of the left-liberal academy's preference for feeling over argument.

Now, Sullivan does say that "Most provocateurs tend toward the dense." I assume that he is referring to Patrick Buchanan, H. Ross Perot, David Duke, among others. I further assume that he is not referring to the provocateur's provocateur, Samuel Clemens. That guy would leave one laughing uproariously while at the same time attempting to remove the scalpel with which Twain had just carved out one's liver.

My point being; Andrew Sullivan is not deserving of your respect nor attention nor time nor thoughts...except when he is. And, this time, he is.

The one-minute test

In "Why this Detroit athlete did the right thing" Michael Rosenberg writes about "the one-minute test" whereby

Larry Foote, Detroit native and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, will write down 10 math problems. His 8-year-old son, Trey-veion, has a minute to get them right.

The youngster then is given 2 minutes to correctly spell his name.

Just kidding. This is actually a good story and, at the end of the story, the difference between Larry Foote and Warren Sapp, or Warren The Sap, is highlighted and could not be more stark. One man, and I do mean "man", does the right thing (obviously loving every minute of it) while the other mammal of the male persuasion lawyers up and fights off his responsibilities tooth and nail.

I am a long-time Steelers fan and will be watching for every bone-jarring tackle by Mr. Foote and cheering right along with Trey-vision, no, Trey-visteon, no, Trey-fusion, no, ahhhh, what the hell, The Kid.

He's only 8 years old, so it is hoped that adults (like his father) would understand the lame attempt at humor here and not confuse it with picking on a little kid You know, like Warren does.

The Ballad of Ezzie Thomas

Ezzie Thomas had an axe.
He gave some ballots forty whacks.
When he saw what he had done,
He gave Mulvaney's forty-one.

Now his shyster points the way
To a new election any day.
And Buddy Dyer's feelin' the heat
Tis doubtful that the charges he'll beat.

Brave Bud says that he knows naught
Of when and how ol Ez was bought.
"Patty Sharp's the one to see,
Why are you all pickin' on me?"

The FDLE's on the case
Tis doubtful that the Dems save face.
But Kerry says the GOP
Was stealin' votes, well we'll just see.

(Also valid for Cleveland, King County, D.C, etc., etc., etc.. Only the names change, fraudulent activity and party affiliation remain the same.)

I'm Down

I'm down, I'm down, I'm really down.
I'm down, I'm down, I'm really down.
The Beatles

Major disaster strikes my modem. I don't know what happened but I can't stay connected and when connected for short periods I can't get web pages to open (little or no communication between modem and server). I've been working on it for two days and can't get it fixed for longer than 5 or 6 minutes. I am reporting from an internet cafe because the home PC is useless.

I'll be back.
The Governator

George W. Bush's Alternative Inaugural Address

P. J. O'Rourke offers this alternative for Pres. Bush on Thursday.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks together with the rest of us? Let them stew in Berkeley, Boston, and Ann Arbor.

He then uses the Ten Commandments to illustrate his point.

"Thou shalt not kill." Why, in the opinion of jerks, is it wrong to kill a baby but all right to kill a baby that's so little he hasn't been born yet? And why do the same jerks who favor abortion oppose the death penalty? We can imagine people so full of loving kindness that they can accept neither the abortionist nor the executioner. We can even imagine people so cold-hearted that they embrace them both. But it takes a real jerk to argue in favor of killing perfect innocents and letting Terry Nichols live.

And as for the Tenth Commandment;

Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have--go get your own.

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.

Yes, but Jews and Mexicans and...

Dead man writing

Writing in The Guardian (the British waaaay leftwing, American bashing tabloid) writer George Monbiot states in his article A Televisual Fairyland that

On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned.

Mr. Monbiot then plaintively begs,

How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism?

He offers the following, which he describes as "squalid little stories" 1.) The CBS Rathergate fraud and, 2.) The Armstrong Williams payola debacle.

Now, before I set out to ridicule Mr. Monbiot, I did a little research into his background. This from his autobiography as published at monbiot.com

During seven years of investigative journeys in Indonesia, Brazil and East Africa, he was shot at, beaten up by military police, shipwrecked and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets. He came back to work in Britain after being pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya, having contracted cerebral malaria.

The guy's dead! I didn't know that dead writers could still write. I've got to get on down to Barnes and Noble to snatch up Dostoevsky's latest and I just can't wait for Capote to put the finishing touches on "Smith and Hickock, Where Are They Now?".

Anyway, Mr. Monbiot blames the reelection of Mr. Bush on a fully discredited anti-Bush CBS report (lamenting the firing of the executives and most especially that of Mary Mapes) and a now discredited conservative commentator. Regarding the CBS fraud, he says,

Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked.

Suggesting? The two top document examiners in the land, one paid by CBS itself during its internal investigation, both said that the documents were obvious forgeries. The term "suggesting" was never used. He asks, again plaintively,

How many people have lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam?

What bogus stories?

How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica Lynch affair?

What misreporting would that be?

Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003?

Define "active programme" or program or whatever.

Or that he was buying uranium from Niger (who said that?), or using mobile biological weapons labs

Yeah, fire the entire French, German and Egyptian intelligence services as well as all of Mossad and the CIA.

or had a hand in 9/11?

Again, who said that?

How many people were sacked, during Clinton's presidency, for broadcasting outright lies about the Whitewater affair?

What lies would those be and who broadcast them?

The answer, in all cases, is none.

He then turns his attention to Mr. Armstrong and his unfortunate non-disclosed shilling for the Dept. of Education. He merely decries the fact that America's Black Forum was bought by the Uniworld Group where,

With Williams's help, the new owners have reversed its politics, and turned it into a recruitment vehicle for the Republican party.

These stories, in other words, are illustrations of the ways in which the US media is disciplined by corporate America.

Oh, you mean the way Enron disciplined The Houston Chronicle or the way that Halliburton continues to discipline The NYT? And then he uses, fantastically, the CNN fraud of Operation Tailwind to show how right-wing pressure can bring even a titan like Ted Turner to his knees. If I recall, and I do, CNN's unimpeachable source sued them for libel for "misquoting and misrepresenting" his statements. Go here (pdf) to learn the outcome of that Quixotic venture. Hey! Didn't I hear some other unimpeachable source threatening to sue CBS over the Rathergate fraud for the very same reason?

Well. The Democrats can breathe a long sigh of relief to know that they lost the election not because their candidate was a stiff, nor because their platform appealed to, well, almost no one, nor because their lion-maned Massachusetts billionaire senators had lost touch with America, oh, about 20 years ago, nor because of fraudulently obtained battlefield decorations, nor because of fraternization with an enemy of The United States while officially still in uniform, nor for promising to make The United States subservient to the French and their ilk, nor for insulting teachers and librarians.

No, the Democrats lost the election because the main stream media is disciplined by corporate America.

Too bad the guy didn't just stay dead.

Andrew Sullivan ain't gonna like that "fairy" business.

Clearer Transparency

Kofi Annan plans a shake-up of his management team according to this report from al-Reuters via Yahoo News. Or a re-shuffle, as is related later in the article. Now, there is a big difference between a shakeup and a re-shuffle. However, in either case you have the same milk and ice cream or the same 52 cards when you have finished as those with which you started. In other words, don't expect any meaningful changes.

Now Kofi, or as many of my English language students mispronounce it, "Coffee", says, "I saw Mr. Volcker's comments on the audit reports, which indicate that we have work to do in the management area and we need clearer transparency." Clearer transparency. Hmmm. Reminds me of the detergent commercial for bluer blues and whiter whites. Clearer transparency as opposed to what? Less opaque opacity? And Coffee "saw" the comments, not studied them or carefully reviewed them or perused them or discussed them with Paul Volker. He just saw them. What if I told Roger L. Simon that I had just seen one of his detective novels and what I think Roger needs is a gunnier Gunn? Did I read the novel? Well, no, but I saw it, dontcha know?

And for more hilarity, the article goes on to report that "John Ruggie, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general and now a professor of international relations at Harvard University, said the difficulty the world body had in responding to the oil-for-food charges made Annan realize that different kind (sic) of skills were necessary in key positions." Different kinds of skills like honesty, integrity, actually doing some work and avoiding "NO PARKING" zones were those which he referenced, I'm sure.

I think I'll go prepare a whiskier whiskey and hit the couch as I certainly possess the skills necessary for that key position.

Ukraine - "We had generals on the side of the people."

In this astonishing story in The NY Times, How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path times reporter C. J. Chivers relates how the Ukranian secret police (S.B.U.), whose top commander, Col. Gen. Ihor P. Smeshko had decided that bloodshed was to be avoided at any cost, was instrumental in derailing the forced putdown of the peaceful insurrection by Ukrainian protesters. Outstanding! Gen. Smeshko had hundreds of intelligence officers moving throughout the demonstrators (to advise them and try to protect them), video equipment on rooftops to record any events which could later "be used as evidence" as he pointedly warned Gen. Popkov, commander of the troops advanving on the Kiev demonstrators, snipers on rooftops to shoot the advancing troops in an effort to protect the demonstrators and intelligence officers in cars and trucks scouring the countryside outside Kiev to try to determine the route being used by the advancing troops.

Gen. Smeshko went so far as to have a face-to-face confrontation with Kuchma and Yanukovich, forcing Kuchma to turn on Yanukovich and the latter to stalk out of the meeting in a rage. "Viktor Feyodovich, if you are ready for a state of emergency, you can give this order," he said. "Here is Bilokon," he continued. "The head of the M.V.D. You will be giving him, as chairman of the government, a written order to unblock the buildings? You will do this?"

Mr. Yanukovich was silent. General Smeshko waited. "You have answered," he continued, according to people in the meeting. "You will not do it. Let us not speak nonsense. There is no sense in using force."

Read the whole thing. It's better than anything Le Carre ever fictionalized.

Heartfelt gratitude to George W. Bush and The Washington Post

THE PRESIDENT: A lot shorter than usual.
The Post: It's good, short is good.

From the transcript of Bush Interview by Washington Post staff writers Michael A. Fletcher and Jim VandeHei Friday aboard Air Force One en route to Jacksonville, Fla.

I'm not sure that Conchita is gonna buy this.

Stop whining about hate mail.

I've been watching the blogosphere for several days regarding the hate mail being received by various bloggers. Michelle Malkin, Andrew Sullivan, Michele Catalano (in private email, so no link) and even Glenn Reynolds complains that his name is misspelled in a hate mail to Sullivan.

Well, I want you to know that in spite of Reynolds' claim that "Actually, I think that Zephyr Teachout wins the 'hate-filled missives of the week' award", Mark in Mexico has received the HATE MAIL and HATE-FILLED MISSIVE of the millenium. I have copied this directly from my Yahoo inbox.

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:10:48 -0800 (PST)
From: "MARGARET CHO" margiecho@fuzznuts.net
Subject: YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL
To: markenmexico@yahoo.com

Mark,
I love you.

xxxxxooooo,

Margie
USA.

Cletis, loan me your .44 and leave me alone for a couple of minutes, will yuh? Yeah, thanks...and, uh, close the door. That's right, thanks.

The Official Oriole Oath of Allegiance

In response to my posting (scroll down) of The Official New York Yankee Oath of Allegiance, an overwhelming number of Bird supporters have clamored for their own (the actual number of clamorers remains classified). So here, for the very first time released publically and in special honor and recognition of Jeff Goldstein is The Official Oath of Allegiance of The Baltimore Orioles;

Raise your right hand (no, you moron, the other right hand. Sheesh!) and repeat in slurred tone;

"Yeah, well...whatever."

More on the UN Special Session on The Holocaust

In this post I mentioned that the members of the Generally Inept Assembly of the UN were being queried by Kofi Anan as to supporting a Special Session in memory of The Holocaust. I wondered how many nations made up the "majority" who supported such a special session, a 96 member simple majority of the 191 member Generally Waste-of-our-money Assembly or more. This report says that I was shortchanging the Generally Moronic Assembly, but not by much. It claims that 111 of the 191 nations have expressed support for the commemoration, and specifically lists Pakistan, Bangladesh, Oman and Morocco as having voiced support. However, the article appears on the 14th of January and says that the final day to come forward in support of the special session is "Thursday", which I take to mean the following day. The report quotes Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador, as saying that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan had still not responded.

Furthermore, the story quotes Gillerman as thanking The United States, Russia, the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand for making the original request. I wonder if Israel would have liked to have made this request. I'm sure that she would have. I am also sure that if she had done so, the response would have been less than tepid, don't you think? That really sucks but I guess it is reality.

Another thing I noted in ambassador Gillerman's statement of thanks. I did not realize that the European Union had a seat in the Generally For-idiots Assembly. I see a train coming. That train that I see is the cloaking of individual European nations' anti-Semitism in the "European Union's" response to various issues down the line. In one way, that's OK., I guess. It means hurt feelings will be spared and the right thing may get done. In another way, however, it's not so good. What happens when an ugly poisonous monster (see Holocaust) grows too big to be successfully cloaked?

Stay tuned.

The Official Yankee Oath

In Those Damn Yankees, Thomas Fitzgerald invites all non-native born New York Yankee fans to take The Official Yankee Oath of Allegiance. Now, I've been a Yankee fan since earliest memory (this, I swear, is from memory; Stengle, Howard/Berra, Skowran, Richardson-???, Rizzuto-Kubek-Tresh, Boyer (brother Ken 3B at St. Louis), Berra/Howard, Mantle, Maris, Ford). So there, that should establish my bonafides, except for who replaced Richardson (Dave ???, beaned, ended career, who replaced him?). Now that I think about it, why the turnover in middle infield? It seemed like the Yankees went through 3 shortstops and 3 second basemen in 5 years and every one of them was All-Star caliber, although I am sure that it was over a much longer timeframe.

Mr. Fitzgerald has made available to me, after all these years, the opportunity to become a legal Yankee fan, sort of an illegal alien amnesty. The Official Yankee Oath of Allegiance.

Raise your right hand (no, the other right hand..yeah, that one) and repeat in sonorous tone, the following;

"I do solemnly swear allegiance to all things New York Yankee.

That I promise to ridicule and belittle the accomplishment of any other professional baseball team and state unequivocally my pledge to believe in the inferiority of all other championship ball clubs, their franchise and their meager history.

That winning one out of every four World Series establishes entitlement and if another team wins in our stead, it will be viewed as a fluke.

That I recognize that year in and year out, it is for the good of baseball the New York Yankee organization spend like hell and...

whereas the Yankees shall continue their winning ways and dominate Fall Classics for decades to come, I will insist it isn't because of Steinbrenner's money, it's because other teams don't try hard enough and money has nothing to do with it.

That I take this oath freely and without reservation, for the betterment of America and all things baseball."

Clint Eastwood to Michael Moore

'Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you.'

Be still my heart.

Josie Wales: I notice that when I get to likin' folks, they ain't around for long.
Chief Dan George: I notice that when you get to not likin' 'em, they ain't around for long, neither.

Oh! Be still my heart.

(edited. changed "people" to "folks". if memory serves, Josie said,"folks".)

Linked to: Ace
.

Updating blogroll (see update)

Well, I'm up against it. I have put off updating my blogroll for many weeks because it is a pain in the ass to do. Now, I've got some 25 or 30 blogs to install and it is going to take me forever. Well, no choice, I have to do it, so, here goes. See you in a couple of hours.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Heretical Ideas. I've got you in there twice! Screw it. I'll fix it later.

Michelle Malkin - upright lady.

I have seen several references to hate email received by Michelle Malkin over the past few days but just tonight I followed a link from Instapundit to see what all the fuss was about. Sickening.

Why does anyone put up with this kind of garbage? Because she has something to say and she's-a-gonna-say-it, that's why.

Bully!

CBS News - WHACK! SLAP! BONK!

In What's Ailing CBS News? Let's Make a Not-So-Little List former CBS News chief Gordon Van Sauter is no less than brutal with his former employer, and television and print MSM in general. To wit, re: CBS;

Well, for one thing, it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term emblematic anchorperson and no cohesive management structure. Outside of those annoyances, it shouldn't be that hard to fix.

Ouch.

However, I don't understand this. He states,

...CBS Chairman Les Moonves, the most effective executive in broadcasting today...

on the heels of

...no cohesive management structure.

How long has Moonves been there, 2 weeks? He doesn't sound too effective to me. If I were put in charge of an organization, and I don't care whether it were Jose's Hat Shop or General Motors, I'd have a cohesive management structure installed in less than a month or I'd be the only one left standing. And get fired for having no management structure at all. Which would be very annoying.

Just sayin'.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is right about Nazi occupation of France.

The Jerusalem Post reports than Le Pinhead is in hot water for stating during an interview that the Nazi occupation of France was not particularly inhuman (inhumane?). I think he's right. When the majority of your people collaborate (see Vichy France) you would expect to be treated with a bit more care and respect than those who actually fought back (see Warsaw). Now the fact that he admits to some blunders (by this I suppose he refers to 2500 out of 76,000 deported Jews actually survived) in no way should intimate that the Germans were inhumane. Just inefficient, I guess. The first offensive shots fired by US forces in WWII were against French forts defending the Tunisian coast for their German guests. What more loyal subjects could one ask for?

Keep your chins up there, John Mary (known affectionately around here as "La Rana"), especially in the face of those snotty Israelis. After all, 73,500 out of some 6.5 million is really a pretty small percentage, right?

UN to convene special session in memory of holocaust victims - I wonder who'll come. (see update)

This article from Kerala News (India) says that the useless UN will hold a special session of the Generally Incompetent Assembly, made up of 191 nations, in memory of The Holocaust. Kofi Annan says that "a majority" of member states have agreed to the request to convene the special session. I wonder what constitutes this majority. A majority of 191 nations could be as small a number as 96. Will it include countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Morocco? It will be interesting to monitor this Special Session to see who does and does not participate.

As the article points out, the UN was founded on the principle of "Never Again", meaning never again a disaster the likes of The Holocaust perpetrated on a people by another people. I wonder what the German response will be.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Commenter akaky makes the point that the Germans haven't slaughtered any European Jews in over 60 years, so he/she considers the UN a success, in spite of the odd million or so Cambodians, Tsutsis, etc. slaughtered over the same time period, since no UN mandate apparently existed to stop anything other than Germans slaughtering European Jews. And besides, notes akaky, one can get room service while watching the Germans not slaughtering any European Jews.

Note to akaky: Irritating as hell when one hits the Enter key in mid-comment, no?

The Linguist and the Democrats

Jesse Walker, Managing Editor of Reason on Line, writes in "The Man Who Framed Himself: How George Lakoff got trapped in his own metaphors" that linguist Lakoff surfaces "Like potholes after a snowstorm, when Democrats lose an election..." to explain how the words and language in which the various issues are framed have caused the Democrats to lose election after election.

According to Mr. Walker, Lakoff says, "When the word tax is added to relief, the result is a metaphor: Taxation is an affliction." When Democrats use language like that, he warns, they're "accepting the conservative frame. The conservatives had set a trap: The words drew you into their worldview."

I agree. For instance, the Republicans have been well known for several years to repeatedly state with great confidence and no small amount of corroborative evidence, "We kick ass and (sometimes) take names." While the Democrats, who over the same time period have adopted (or been adopted by) such sterling performers as Michael Moore, Barbara Boxer, Osama bin Laden and Al Sharpton, have become most closely associated with the phrase, "We are full of shit."

UPDATE: al-Reuters quotes Sen. Teddy Kennedy illustrating my point exactly;

"Unlike the Republican Party, we believe our values unite us as Americans, instead of dividing us."

"Today, I propose a progressive vision for America, a vision that Democrats must fight for in the months and years ahead -- a vision rooted in our basic values of opportunity, fairness, tolerance and respect for each other, and, we are full of shit."

"If the White House's idea of bipartisanship is that we have to buy whatever partisan ideas they send us, we're not interested, and, in addition, we are full of shit."

"We have an administration that falsely hypes almost every issue as a crisis," Kennedy said. "They did it on Iraq, and they are doing it now on Social Security," he said.

"They exploit the politics of fear and division, while ours is a politics of hope and unity, and what makes me angriest is that they kick ass and sometimes take names."

"In an election so close, defeat has a thousand causes -- and it is too easy to blame it on particular issues or tactics, and besides that they kick ass and sometimes take names while we remain completely full of shit." Kennedy said. He then exhorted his audience, "Learn to swim!"

(Edited for absolute clarity.)

Lileks...stilleto

In The Sun Herald James Lileks does his usual brilliant work to the CBS Rathergate Reprt with his razor-sharp stilleto. To wit;

It (the Report) wasn't quietly sneaked out on a Friday night. It named names and collected scalps. Four CBS employees were heaved out the window. Some sort of commission will be set up to safeguard the precious remaining ounces of the network's credibility, which are now in a vial in a safe.

The report did note that some who helped unmask the forgeries had agendas of their own. Which is relevant how, exactly? If an atheist proves that the face of the Virgin Mary on a Krispy Kreme was actually drawn with a Sharpie, this doesn't mean the doughnut's holy.

The CBS report can't bring itself, even now, to say the documents were unquestionably bogus. Rather himself told the panel that "no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic." This is like floating in the North Atlantic, clinging to a White Star Line life preserver, asking for proof that the Titanic ever existed in the first place.

Remember the heading on those damning memos? SUBJECT: CYA.

"A" stands for "anchor."

and these hilarious Ratherisms;

You are as hard-working as an Oklahoma toad in a button-polishing contest, and I'm happy as a horse who inherited a peanut butter factory. After 17 attempts to smear Bush with a fabricated charge, it looks as if we may finally have something that sticks like Juicy Fruit on the Alamo wall. Keep in touch. Dan