Saint Rudy

I doubt Kerik withdrew because of his minor nanny problem, although I suppose it's possible. But the real question is whether this event knocks Saint Rudy off his perch a bit. Kerik was Rudy's choice, and this is the kind of bad advice which pisses Bush off I imagine. Perhaps we won't see the mayor hanging out with the prez so much in the coming days.

Morning Thread

Chat away.

Quote of the Week

From Big Bad Bill O'Falafel:

That's why nobody sticks up for Christmas except me. Did Peter Jennings stick up for Christmas last night? I don't believe he did. How about Brian Williams, did he? Did Rather stick up for Christmas? How about Jim Lehrer -- did he? Did Larry King -- hello -- I love Christmas -- did he? No.

-- Bill O'Reilly, The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, December 9, 2004

Flip Flop

Kerik's out.

WASHINGTON Dec 10, 2004 — Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, President Bush's choice to be homeland security secretary, has withdrawn his name from consideration, the White House announced late Friday.

Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan, in a conference call to news organizations, revealed that Kerik had withdrawn "for personal reasons."

Late Night

Chat away.

Friday Cat Blogging

Cat Torture edition.

Dealing With Liberal Academia

The Poor Man tells the future:

How can it be that, after only a year with the Times, David Brooks has already written the definitive example of every wingnut talking point there is? What horrors does the future hold?

This "problem" will be dealt with the way every other left-wing conspiracy has been dealt with. First, it will be whined about incessantly, and anyone who tells them to pipe down will be accused of hating America. This can be kept up indefinitely, because, if there is one thing conservatives are good at, it is whining about how oppressed they are by nebulous crypto-commie cabals. (The other thing they are good at is gloating about how they control everything. Both can be done at the same time without any discomfort.) Peter Beinart will assume that there's something to this, and write about how the Democrats need to abandon their unmanly intellectual elitism and embrace the proud Democratic tradition of Wavy Gravy. Gregg Easterbrook will mount his 600 cubic hectare gravity bong and write a column about how the theories of evolution and relativity are only theories, maaaan, and as such are no better than his theory that there is an infinitely wise and kind and just spirit controlling the universe who allows the creatures he loves unconditionally to suffer the many arbitrary cruelties of this world, such as Gregg Easterbrook columns. Principled liberals and moderates will roll over, and public universities will create Departments of Conservative Studies, where you can earn a Doctorate in Wingnuttery for your dissertation on how the Dixie Chicks made us lose Vietnam.

Let's Make a Deal

I'll concede to my good friend Jonah Goldberg and Peter Beinart and everyone else that "all serious liberals [and people]" supported, at least in principle, the war in Afghaistan as proper response to the events of 9/11 and a necessary step in combatting terrorism if they all concede one little thing to me:

ALL SERIOUS PEOPLE OPPOSED THE WAR IN IRAQ FOR EXACTLY THE SAME REASON


That is, they opposed the war on Iraq because they considered stopping that war a necessary step in combatting terrorism. Sure, there were lots of other reasons to oppose that war, but that one was good enough and one which was embraced by plenty of "serious" people.


Or, at least, take the issue up with noted Afghanistan war opposition leader Donald Rumsfeld.

(yes, the whole conservatarian "serious people believe..." construction is one of their most annoying little rhetorical tricks)

Jew-Hollywood-Anal-Sex-Abortion Conspiracy

Revealed by William Donohue!

Pierce

MSNBC hasn't quite mastered the whole link thing, so I'll just quote most of it:

If you're keeping score at home, this week, speaking on behalf of the home side, Peter Beinart suggests we all jettison Michael Moore, who's never done anything except make a lot of successful movies and support Wesley Clark. Meanwhile, across the field, not only does C-Plus Augustus do a photo op with an accused child-diddling parson, but also David Brooks uses his prime piece of real estate to popularize a eugenics Creepazoid from deep on the fringes of the fringe. And there's your national dialogue for you: Democrats must keep their best friends in the attic while Republicans keep the bats**t brigade right there in the front hall.

Moore apparently has become a punchline for "all that social justice stuff," among the DLC corpocrats. Bruce Reed cited him on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal -- and what a fine place THAT is to find a Democrat. (I hope Vince Foster's family thinks to call Bruce over the holidays to compliment him on his new pals.) On CSPAN, I also heard Moore's name used in vain by none other than strategist Jim Jordan who, when we last heard from him, had John Kerry running a strong fourth in New Hampshire, but widening his narrow lead over both Al Sharpton and Trigger.

Thanks for coming back, Jim. Mine's the gray Buick. Bring it around, will you?

(And while we're at it, the Slate piece about MoveOn.org was another prize, especially the blind quotes from an "aide to one of the Democratic presidential candidates," and if the candidate in question isn't Weepin' Joe Lieberman, I'll eat Michael Kinsley's hat. Note to Slate -- there are any number of rightist groups whose only function is to "excite a finite universe" of hysterical wingnuts, and the Republicans seem fairly cool with it.)

As long as we're cutting people loose, here's a notion. How's about we start ignoring The New Republic for a while? I mean, it's been a pretty good 20-year run for the Singer midgets since they signed aboard Ronald Reagan's Excellent Nun-Slaughtering adventures in Central America. People still take them nearly as seriously as they take themselves -- and this is despite Ruthie Shalit and Stevie Glass, and the Bell Curve, and Liz McCaughey's health-care horsepucky, and Beinart's own defense of on-your-Beltway-duff reporting from a couple of months back. Turning a highly successful -- would TNR really like to measure itself against the works of Michael Moore using any of the conventional benchmarks of American success? -- progressive activist into cheap shorthand in order to advance the progressive cause is a strategy that leads me to believe that maybe some of the golden children need to get out into the country more.

As near as I can tell, the worst thing most rank-and-file progressives have said about Michael Moore is that he's a lousy boss. (And, boy, is THAT not an argument available to any TNR editor.) Whatever quibbles you may have had against his movie --and I'm not sure that this particular magazine ever will be in a position to quibble about anyone's facts again --the movie showed the country an awful lot that the country's alleged media gatekeepers declined to show it while they went haring after the fantastical grounds of an increasingly bloody war. If some of the suckers are feeling a little guilty now, that's their problem, not Michael Moore's.

And, Dr. Alterman says he's co-hosting the Majority Report on Monday. Dr. Atrios will be doing it on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fun With Infinite Horizons Models

Now this is truly a great idea. Cost of NAFTA to the economy of Mexico? $8.1 trillion.

Late Morning Thread

Chat away.

The Problem Is

When a network interviews someone, pretending they hold neutrality when they are actually partisan. That is not a legal problem, however, but an ethical one.

Fucking hell.


And, adding to that, yesterday CNN had a segment on Social Security which began with:

Social Security is in trouble. Politicians like South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham know it.

And then included diversity of opinion by experts from... the Concord Coalition and the Cato Institute.

That was it.

The Social Security media fix is in. Do you know why? Cavuto's Jordan Kimmel of the Magnet Investment group told us. Cavuto asked him:

Jordan Kimmel, if we start seeing that [privatization], that's a lotta money that makes its way to guys like you right?

Oh, it's just another, another bushel of money. The money that's been on the sidelines in the bonds. The money that's in Social Security. Again, I think you will see a certain privatization happen. And again, it's an avalanche of money and there's just so much money on the sidelines. That's why the market has been so strong for months now.

Heh. Indeed.

Great Moments in Punditry

From the 8-times divorced Larry King, talking to John and the wonderful Elizabeth Edwards, regarding her recently diagnosed breast cancer:

Senator, has there been any thoughts and this happens in any case where the male hears the news from the mate -- aesthetically, how will Elizabeth look, how will she respond? Do you have any of those feelings?"

Flip Flop

Look, this is gibberish. Even if the idiots come up with some "creative dynamic scoring" plan for SS borrowing, one cannot simultaneously cut the deficit in half and not cut it in half any more than one can have tea and no tea.

White House budget director Joshua Bolten said the cost of implementing Bush's plans would not undercut Bush's goal of cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.

Yet, he said, such costs ``may well'' add to short-term annual deficits. ``I don't want to prejudge how they might be accounted for,'' Bolten said.

Yet Another Version

I know this is getting old but, but it's also increasingly ridiculous:

The affiliations and identities of bloggers are not always apparent. Take writer Duncan Black, who blogged under the name Atrios. His was a popular liberal blog. During part of the period he was blogging, Black was a senior fellow at a liberal media watchdog group, Media Matters for America. Critics in the blogosphere said this fact wasn't fairly disclosed.

“People are pretty smart in assuming that if a blog is making a case on one side that it’s partisan,” Jamieson said. “The problem is when a blog pretends to hold neutrality but is actually partisan.”

That is not a legal problem, however, but one of ethics. Black eventually claimed credit for his blog and his affiliation with Media Matters. Fellow bloggers heavily publicized his political connections. And Black continued blogging.

Defenders of Black point out that unlike the South Dakota blogs, he was not working on behalf of a campaign. And clearly, absent blog ethical guidelines, what Black did was not that different than many others.

Still no correction notice...

Falafel!

Thanks Bill! Love you too!


On Air America in a few...

DeLay - Punk'd

haha.

Shut Your Hole Norm

Things are changing, apparently...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Bush administration expressed confidence in U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) on Thursday and said he should stay in office, in a belated rebuff to demands from Republicans in Congress for his resignation.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth called reporters together to deliver the comments, saying that he had to clarify the U.S. position after his colleagues and the media believed the United States government was not supporting Annan.

"We are expressing confidence in the secretary-general and his continuing in office," Danforth said, "No one to my knowledge has cast doubt on the personal integrity of the secretary-general. No one."

"We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary-general," said Danforth, adding that he was speaking for the White House and the State Department.

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), a Minnesota Republican, who was later joined by five congressmen, last week called for the resignation of Annan, who has two more years in office before completing his second five-year term.

Bobo's World

Cary, NC.

Story:

Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."
Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.

Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.

"You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.

Some book excerpts:

* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)