That said, is Hayes more insane or less insane than Tim Russert[?]
Less. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Simple Answers to Simple Questions
Yglesias:
Less. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Less. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
There's Something About Foers
Managed to finish another book without the word Potter in the title, Everything is Illuminated. Bah. First half or so was good, but I liked the second half a lot better the first time I read it... when it was called One Hundred Years of Solitude (though, admittedly, I didn't like that much either).
Then I watched the movie. Oy. Only Liev Schreiber could make Eugene Hutz boring.
Then I watched the movie. Oy. Only Liev Schreiber could make Eugene Hutz boring.
Joe Biden Discovers the Intertubes
I think this is the first time I've gotten a press release from the Biden campaign, advertising his intertubes appearance. He goes at Rudy!
Working against Joementum II: Staying Alive is the fact that he's hired former Lieberman worker Marion Steinfels. Working in his favor is the fact that Lieberman fired her.
Working against Joementum II: Staying Alive is the fact that he's hired former Lieberman worker Marion Steinfels. Working in his favor is the fact that Lieberman fired her.
Bonded
I think an important if generally ignored point is that not only were war supporters shouting down war opponents over the years, they also did everything they could to shout down people who were suggesting even tepidly that maybe Dear Leader and his Merry Gang of Incompetents were fucking the whole thing up. While I don't have much respect for the "incompetence dodgers" on the question of whether the Great and Glorious Invasion of Iraq was a good idea, it is true that the whole adventure was handled about as incompetently as it could have been by the Bush gang. More than that, this was pretty apparent from the beginning. The pro-war gang will, for the most part, never rethink their support for their pet war, but I'd hope at least a few of them might consider that their blind support for these idiots helped ensure that their pet war, their central mission, was a colossal fuckup.
Oh, and lots of people died too. Mustn't forget that.
Oh, and lots of people died too. Mustn't forget that.
Quality Snark
Yglesias:
If all this had gone well, Gerson could have left his government job and become a pillar of the Washington Establishment. Since it turned out to be a tremendous failure, instead he got a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship and a Washington Post column.
The Philosopher's Stone
No Harry Potter yet for this household, though presumably it's flying somewhere over the Atlantic right now. Before I bought the first couple books years ago, I had read that the American versions have had their English spellings Americanized, some English wording "translated," and some regional English, especially Hagrid's, significantly toned down to make it more understandable to an American audience it seemed preferable to get the original UK editions.
Indeed
Lemieux:
We all remember what the press did to mark the end of the Dean campaign - wore T-Shirts which had "Establishment Media" on the front and "We Have the Power/ Dean Press Corps 2004" on the back.
Note that the problem isn't that journalists behave this way, the problem is that they behave this way while pretending to operate under some Magical Mystery Code of Journalistic Integritude. As in:
Step 1: Assume we have ethics and norms of behavior.
Step 2: Do any goddamn thing we want because, by assumption, we have integritude.
...here's the reporting for the Dean story.
The fact that Ambinder -- first with ABC News' atrocious "The American Pravda", now with the Atlantic Monthly -- takes for granted the use of trivia by reporters in order to pursue personal vednettas is instructive in an extremely depressing way.
We all remember what the press did to mark the end of the Dean campaign - wore T-Shirts which had "Establishment Media" on the front and "We Have the Power/ Dean Press Corps 2004" on the back.
Note that the problem isn't that journalists behave this way, the problem is that they behave this way while pretending to operate under some Magical Mystery Code of Journalistic Integritude. As in:
Step 1: Assume we have ethics and norms of behavior.
Step 2: Do any goddamn thing we want because, by assumption, we have integritude.
...here's the reporting for the Dean story.
Al Gore's Scam
Their inability to distiguish between fact and fiction, between Jack Bauer the character and Kiefer Sutherland the actor, is frigthening.
Though we already knew about this general problem.
Though we already knew about this general problem.
DIETL: No, I have a problem because things have changed, Hassan. We have to -- lookit: a bunch of Irish guys are not going to get on a plane now and blow themselves up or put themselves into buildings.
The fact of the matter is -- I mean, you don't watch 24 on Fox TV? They're out there. They're out there. There are cells out there. We have to protect ourselves against it, as Americans, and you know something, if you're on a plane with me, Hassan, and you're sitting next to me, you'll be looked at a little careful -- more carefully than me. That's the facts of life. That's what we're living with today. I'm sorry to say, 9-11 changed our whole life.
Sunday Bobbleheads
Document the atrocities.
ABC's "This Week" — Pre-empted by coverage of the British Open golf tournament.
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
NBC's "Meet the Press" — National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
CNN's "Late Edition" — White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend; Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; David Bonior, John Edwards' campaign manager; and Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., Barack Obama supporter.
"Fox News Sunday" — Townsend; Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; British entrepreneur Richard Branson.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Wackos
Without expressing any opinion about Ron Paul, let me just remind the world that the "wackos" are the ones who suggested Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he was in any way a threat to the United States, that invading the country with 130,000 troops would be a walk in the park, etc...
The fact that substantial numbers of our elite media and political industrial complexes are members of this group of Wackos does not render the term inappropriate, it simply serves to remind us of just how fucked up our elites are and just how large a problem we face.
The fact that substantial numbers of our elite media and political industrial complexes are members of this group of Wackos does not render the term inappropriate, it simply serves to remind us of just how fucked up our elites are and just how large a problem we face.
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