Digby, channeling my pal Snotglass, on Ann Coulter(from my comments):

Liberals still don't get it.

The good Americans of the rural red states are so highly sophisticated that they are very familiar with the subtle irony and satire Coulter employs. They know her mildly inflammatory rhetoric is pretty much a (screamingly funny) joke and they see it as no more than poking harmless fun at a bunch of liberal New Yorkers.

This is so very different from what MWO does when they irresponsibly call members of the press "whores." They are inciting the many violent politically active liberals of the urban blue states who take such terms literally and believe that the members of the media are actually turning tricks in the seedy areas of Washington DC. They are incapable of understanding that "whore" used in this context is a metaphor (something which is much too complex a concept for the parochial big city libs.) They might feel compelled to act out some vigilante justice and hurt some of these journalists because they think MWO wants them to. They're that suggestable.

I've found that when speaking to liberals you need to speak very slowly and very literally. Many of them weren't Christian homeschooled and spent an unfortunate amount of time in public universities. Unlike the worldly creationist intellectuals who enjoy Coulter, liberals just aren't well educated enough to be able to distinguish rollicking good humor from an incitement to violence.

This debate just points out, once again, that radical liberals just don't understand the difference between cosmopolitan red staters and the provincial inhabitants of blue state America. Until they do, they will never have a governing majority or a political mandate like the one George W. Bush currently enjoys.

What the hell. Energized by recent stories touting possible Democratic success in congressional races I'm gonna put my finger in the wind and make a prediction -- Dems gain 11 House seats in November.

Optimistic, perhaps, but...

Vanity Site notes that Bush is allegedly reading a book about why he should ignore the military's advice.

Election and fraud of all kinds has been with us forever. It's committed by members of both parties in every imaginable way. Can anyone please explain to me how an un-auditable voting system is a good thing.

Kaus-approved Ann Coulter says:


My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."




MWO says:



VIOLENCE INCITEMENT WATCH

Slate/Mickey Kaus-Recommended Ann Coulter Expresses Regret That NYT Journalists Have Not Been Murdered By Terrorists

In an interview with the New York Observer's George Gurley, Ann Coulter says she regrets that a terrorist did not attack the New York Times building.

Was it an offhanded, off-the-record remark? No, Coulter encourages Gurley to turn on his tape recorder so that he can be sure to record (and presumably report) her regret that New York Times journalists have not been killed.

We wonder again why Slate.com's Mickey Kaus would concern himself with MWO's rhetoric, when someone he has recommended, and whose site he has permanently linked on his weblog at Slate.com, has expressed disappointment that his fellow journalists working for the New York Times have not been murdered in a terrorist attack.

Coulter's comments should sicken anyone, and we hope Slate.com and Mickey Kaus will reconsider their promotion of those who advocate such violence.

Even the CNN anchor, Carol Lin, was a bit dubious about claims that that al-Qaeda training tapes showed an 'incredibly sophisticated operation included a mock urban environment.' She was like "umm..it's just a bunch of rocks isn't it?"

Excellent column by Thomas Frank in the LA Times

The Rah-Rah Boys

There are no mea culpas from the gurus who prophesied an unending bull market. They're still
cruising from one posh gig to the next.

By THOMAS FRANK
Thomas Frank is the editor of the Baffler magazine and author of "One Market Under God."

August 18 2002

CHICAGO -- Many of the '90s icons have passed from the scene: The swashbuckling dot-com entrepreneurs have moved back in with mom, the rule-breaking CEOs are being hauled before Congress for tongue-lashings, the day-trading seniors who were supposed to "beat the pros" are thanking God that Social Security still exists. But one group remains untouched: the public intellectuals of the bull market. The writers of Dow-worshipping books and commentators who handed down daring pronunciamentos from the silicon heights are still cruising from one posh gig to the next.

If you tuned in to CNBC at any point during the long, slow meltdown of the last couple of months, you probably saw the news reader turn to a representative of Forbes magazine, formerly one of the world's most enthusiastic pushers of bull market optimism, now cast as an expert on a market in retreat. If you kept watching for a few hours, you probably enjoyed the surreal sight of James Cramer, one of the late boom's most prolific publicists, trying to feign outrage at the same forces he once cheered. And you undoubtedly gaped in disbelief when you recognized Cramer's co-host as Larry Kudlow, the hyperexuberant economist who once proclaimed from the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal that the free-market policies of the Reagan/Clinton years were so profoundly correct that they would one day cause the Dow Jones industrial average to hit 50,000.

The Journal itself, far from showing contrition for its New Economy excesses of a few years back, recently ran a defense of the nation's beleaguered stock analysts by none other than James Glassman, coauthor of the 1999 book "Dow 36,000." In his article, Glassman argued that analysts from the big Wall Street firms are being unfairly singled out for blame by killjoys like the New York attorney general. "Every bear market requires a scapegoat," Glassman wrote, "and this time the chosen victims are stock analysts." Glassman is certainly right about the stock analysts. However guilty they are for puffing the bubble, analysts alone shouldn't be forced to bear the blame for the subsequent catastrophe. That burden should be shared--by, for example, Glassman himself, the editors of the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Forbes magazine, Cramer and Kudlow.

[...]
The prominence of these people and others like them were, to a great degree, unrelated to their skills as economic prognosticators. Their trade was politics, and at it they were wildly successful. Americans were indeed persuaded to roll back the regulatory state in the 1990s, to give the corporations whatever they wanted, to slash welfare, to smash the labor unions and even to (sort of) elect the most pro-corporate administration since Herbert Hoover's, headed by a man who promised to privatize Social Security.

Bush defends Ann Coulter from Liberal Slander.

MISS COULTER: It's hardly a surprise that liberals would concoct such an absurd lie about me. They do it all the time. In fact, coming up with sickening lies about formerly flat-chested good girls who wear size 15 pumps is an integral part of one of their most important daily rituals - the ceremonial vivisection and cannibalization of living, white human infants.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that a fact?

MISS COULTER: Absolutely. And when they're done feasting on the tender young flesh of the white race, they regroup several hours later to defecate together on rug-sized reproductions of the United States Constitution. And then of course, they pray to Satan and Allah while strapping each other into latex gravity boot systems so they can hang upside down like rabid, naked fruit bats for the rest of the day and watch Phil Donahue on MSNBC while urine runs down their inverted torsos and in to their hideous, liberal, gaping maws!

THE PRESIDENT: The depth and accuracy of your knowledge never fails to amaze, Ann.

MISS COULTER: Don't patronize me. It won't work - because I haven't forgotten how you cozied up with Mr. Fatso Slut Murderer - Ted Kennedy - to write that Socialist education bill earlier this year. So tell me, President Bipartisan Lovefest, are you actually a liberal?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I think I've successfully diffused this silly notion of you being a man. Why don't we wrap this up, Ann?

MISS COULTER: Answer the question! Are you now or have you ever been a member of the liberal intelligentsia?! Did you not attend Yale and Harvard Universities? Were you not born in CONNECTICUT?! Oh wait, so was I. Never mind on that one.

Max expresses just about what my take on McKinney is.

"Countdown to Westerfield Verdict" with a little digital clock on counting backwards on the screen? Even the CNN anchor seems a bit embarrassed by this...



UPDATE: looks like they pulled it. Someone has some sense.

Brad DeLong notes that Mitch Daniels is still a liar (my word).

And now comes the really fun part. On Monday Nicolas Bray wrote to me asking if I had caught OMB Director Mitch Daniles on Charlie Rose on Friday August 16. Charlie Rose tried to pin him down, and asked him the question: "How much do you believe the tax cut will contribute to the [long run] deficit?"

Mitch Daniels's answer? Zero. "If [the tax cut] contributes to greater economic growth, it will be a positive factor.... Surpluses don't produce good economies, good economies produce surpluses..."

I know of no analyst anywhere in the world whose run of the numbers suggests that the Bush 2001 tax cut--badly designed from a supply-side point of view--will induce enough economic growth to result in no loss of revenue. I know that there is no budget analyst within OMB, the Treasury, or the Congressional Budget Office who believes this.

Yet Mitch Daniels's dropping of the share of the deterioration in the deficit over the next ten years attributable to the 2001 tax cut from 50 percent (a rough consensus estimate) to 15 percent (in the now 'retracted' OMB July 12 press release) to zero (last Friday) has attracted remarkably little attention.

Take it away Mickey...

Instapundit points me to this comment by Jay Caruso about my objections to Instapundit's "Impeach Mineta" desires.

Addressing both of their comments at once: The issue, as I had said previously, is one of misdirection. It isn't that one can't critcize an administration official without adding "and as you know he/she was appointed by Bush so it is all Bush's fault! neener neener!" and nor have I claimed such a thing. But there is a difference between criticizing their policies and calling on them to be "impeached." Impeach is an imperative verb which is, in this case, directed at no one in particular. Not exactly a constructive call to arms for action because it is calling for an action that will not happen from a group of people (Congress) who are not responsible for the person's actions.

Instpundit says he thinks this could be an issue for Democrats. If by "this" he means the Bush administration's transportation/security policies I agree. If by "this" he means Mineta, who as far as I have seen has not done a single thing in opposition to the expressly stated policies and desires of his boss, then he's simply asking the Democrats to also redirect their possible concerns away from those responsible.


As Rush always tells us, Words Mean Things. And, as is occasionally the case, Rush is right. There's a reason "Impeach Mineta" gets the Borg all excited in a way that "Fire Mineta" would not. The latter emphasizes responsibility, the former doesn't. As Matthew Yglesias points says in my comments:


This has been Bush's real political genius — his supporters seem to disagree with him almost as often as I do, it's just that I see that Bush is to blame for all the absurd and incompetent things that his administration does.

Instapundit responds in my comments as well:


Hey, I've been blaming the Administration for this from day one, and I've been calling for firings. I've even got a post on the "Impeach Mineta" piece.

This is a freebie issue for the Democrats, and I've been pointing it out for months. They could do what Malcolm Wallop did with a dumb OSHA in 1976 (which wasn't nearly as dumb as the homeland security stuff), running some very clever attack commercials. Don't blame me if they don't pick it up.

Fair enough.

Ethel the Blog on Evil Doers and Doers of Evil Who Do Evil to Doggies.

Finishing in second place to no person on this planet in dog appreciation, I of course find the lower picture in the previous item a bit upsetting. Whether the dog was killed by the Evil of the Century of the Week or for propaganda purposes by the CIA or one of their bedfellows, I don't like to see, hear or even think of such things. But if you weep over the fate of a few dogs, consider the numbers in the following excerpt
from an organization that is routinely excoriated by the usual suspects for even considering that the routine torture and murder of animals for any research purpose might be a bad thing:


The U.S. military inflicts the pains of war on hundreds of thousands of animals each year in experiments. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Veterans Administration (VA) together are the federal government's second largest user of animals (after the National Institutes of Health). They account for nearly half the estimated minimum of 1.6 million dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, primates, rats, mice, and "wild animals" used, as reported to Congress in 1983, the last year for which government figures are available.(1) Because these figures don't include experiments that were contracted out to non-governmental laboratories, or the many sheep, goats, and pigs often shot in wound experiments, the actual total of animal victims is probably much higher.

Since the other latest talking point is that Bush vetoed the Smithsonian's "ridiculous bug and worm" projec as proof he was a Fiscal Conservative or something, let's remind ourself what that is. As Josh Marshall took the time to find out - this was in Bush's own budget proposal. And, more than that, far from being a silly project there's a good reason for the money.


And the reason is pretty clear. The current set up has the collection in 730,000 gallons of alcohol just a few blocks from the White House. "The issue is that, in theory, we have a potential bomb sitting there and it's in the middle of the mall in Washington," a spokesman for House Budget Committee Democrats told the AP.



So, before you repeat this one, Tucker Carlson and friends, destroy all the mirrors in your homes so you don't have to have to look at yourselves.

Josh Marshall on the fake New York Times Iraq bias nonsense. Frankly, I've moved away from amusement and towards outright disgust over the people who peddle the latest talking point and the people who fall for it. You know who you are.

Brian Linse interviews Jim Capozzola of the Rittenhouse Review.

Former GOP Congressman and blogger LeBoutillier on Scowcroft, Poppy, and Junior.

Of course the New York Times wedding announcements are elitist and silly, but there's only one reason Tim Noah chose to write about the issue right now, as David E. makes clear in this Medianews letters exchange (Scroll down).


Timothy Noah's response to the NYT's decision to run same-sex wedding announcements is typical of his ilk. "Gays got their foot in the door? Then let's nail it shut."




It's been 12 years since little Timmy Noah had his wedding announcement in the Times, and he decides to write about them this week?

This Salon article is stupid.

Mired in scandal, California businessman Bill Simon is losing a can't-lose race against Gov. Gray Davis

This was never a can't-lose race -- even with Riordan in it would have been a battle.

Embryo Adoption Plan.

Well, here's one way to get to use the carpool lane..