Conason

Heh

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart--or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps--and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now.

Indeed.

Has Brit Hume Resigned Yet?

James Roosevelt Jr. says that maybe he should.

Afternoon Thread

Have fun.

"On the Other Side"

The Power Line blog says:

Jimmy Carter isn't just misguided or ill-informed. He's on the other side.

And Yglesias writes:

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that Hindrocket owes Carter a serious apology. Flinging this sort of totally unsubstantiated allegation is disgusting and utterly destructive of any effort to have serious debate about anything. Is Jimmy Carter really in league with the jihadist forces responsible for the murder of thousands of Americas? Is this what Power Line's fans and those who link to them believe? That a jihadist agent managed to get himself elected president? That an ex-president turned traitor?

These guys really are unbelievable.

Friedmanism

Kevin Drum is writing about The Economist magazine and Social Security, but I think it's a good description of the general phenomenon of "Friedmanism."

In other words, there's no real crisis, the details of Bush's plan are all wrong, and it does nothing to rescue Social Security anyway. But we support it for the same reason George Bush does: because it's one of our ideological hobbyhorses.

And if it eventually becomes law as one of his usual bloated, policy-free, crony friendly monstrosities, they'll be able to point back to this editorial and piously say, We'd never have supported doing it that way. We endorsed the proper version of privatization.

And then they'll move on to enthusiastic support of his next plan.

Messopersia

Link:

TEHRAN, Iran - An unknown aircraft fired a missile on Wednesday in a deserted area near the southern city of Dailam in the province of Bushehr where Iran has a nuclear power plant, Iranian state television said.

"A powerful explosion was heard this morning on the outskirts of Dailam in the Bushehr province. Witnesses said that the missile was fired from an unknown plane 12 miles from the city," Iran's Arabic language Al-Alam said.

...appears to have been a dropped fuel tank.

Morning Thread

Chat away.

Save the Koufax Awards

Bandwidth cost problems. Chip in a little bit through this link.

Strawberry Days

Every time you order a copy, Michelle Malkin cries.




Joking aside, Neiwert's a great writer and his previous two books -- In God's Country and Death on the Fourth of July should be read by all of us.

And, if he moves a lot of books he can get on TV and be the anti-Malkin for a bit.

Scalp Moonves

Go to Drudgey-poo for the story. CBS journos might sue. Good for them.

North Koriran

Government funded website labels picture of Iranian nuke plant as being in North Korea...or vice versa. Hard to keep straight.

Idiots

Obviously what does and doesn't constitute Fair Use under copyright law is somewhat fuzzy, but any company/organization that tries to forbid "deep linking" without making any attempt to put technical roadblocks up are just idiots.

It's called the internets. Look it up...

Republican Senator Praises Filibuster

Link (video).

Wonder what he'll do when Cheney pulls the nuclear option.

I actually kinda hope Cheney does do it. There are several fun ways to slow down Senate business.

Those Damned Dirty Immigrants

Bringing that sickle cell anemia into our clean country.

Afternoon Thread

Have fun.

Please Stop

I don't know why "tax by mile" proposals appeal to so many people. It'd be costly to implement and a likely heavy invasion of privacy, and for what?

We tax gas consumption for two main reasons: 1) to raise revenues and 2) because there are external costs to driving - pollution, congestion, and road wear and tear.

If states are worried about falling revenues due to better mileage, then they can just raise the gas tax.

If you tax by mile instead of by gallon, you reduce the incentives to buy cars with better mileage. Pollution would tend to increase. Cars with worse mileage tend to be bigger so they contribute to congestion more. And, bigger cars do more damage to the roads.

The gas tax isn't a perfect tax -- to reduce inefficient congestion peak period pricing is necessary. But, that can be implemented using EZ-pass type systems on certain roadways on top of the gas tax.

Cute

The wingnutosphere has taken to posting up fake personal ads with my picture, as if I'd care... Wahhh! They're trying to convince people I'm (horrors!) gay!

who cares.

Slandered in the Globe

Since the Boston Globe is unwilling to give Alterman enough space to react to charges that he's anti-Semitic, I'll help out by providing some additional space here. You can read about the entire saga from beginning to end here:

To the editor:
It is quite painful for a proud, practicing pro-Zionist Jew who was Bar Mitvah, educated in Israel, lights candles on Shabbat, attend shul regularly, contributes to the Forward, and educates his own child into the religious tradition, to be accused publicly of anti-Semitism. It has happened to me on occasion in extremely obscure, right-wing websites, but only twice in the mainstream media. Both times it has been done by Cathy Young on the editorial page of The Boston Globe. The last time I was denied the courtesy of a response. I hope that will not be the case today.


As most people are aware, the accusation of anti-Semitism, like that of anti-Americanism, can be employed by people to stifle debate and stigmatize points of view with which they disagree. In this case Cathy Young seeks to silence anyone who recognizes the reality of Jewish responsibility for Palestinian suffering. This is unfortunate, for many reasons—one cannot hope for peace in the Middle East without a mutual recognition of the pain the conflict has caused—but more to the point, phony accusations of anti-Semitism have the effect of weakening societal strictures against the real thing. By employing this slander against me, now twice, Cathy Young is actually aiding and abetting the anti-Semites by robbing the term of any coherent meaning.

Here, for the record, is the entire text of the blog text that has led Young to call me these horrid names. .

“I’m a Jew, but I don’t expect Arabs to pay tribute to my people’s suffering while Jews, in the form of Israel an its supporters—and in this I include myself—are causing much of theirs. Would Andrew [Sullivan] want to go to a service in honor of the suffering of gay bashing bigots? (Wait, don’t answer that. Would a gay person who didn’t regularly offer his political support to gay bashing bigots want to go?) Anyway, I’m sure what I’m saying will be twisted beyond recognition, and so I suppose that makes it stupid to do, but I’m sorry. The Palestinians have also suffered because of the Holocaust. They lost their homeland as the world—in the form of the United Nations—reacted to European crimes by awarding half of Palestine to the Zionists. They call this the “Nakba” or the “Catastrophe.” To ask Arabs to participate in a ceremony that does not recognize their own suffering but implicitly endorses the view that caused their catastrophe is morally idiotic—which is why, I guess, I’m not surprised Andrew’s doing it. Also via Little Roy, here’s another conservative Jew joining David Horowitz in endorsing Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism and even William Donahue’s disgusting anal-sex-obsessed anti-Jewish attack, which was broadcast on MSNBC and implicitly endorsed by Pat Buchanan. “

You can see from the above while the item does recognize the political folly of demanding that Arabs who have suffered their own catastrophe at the hands of Jews, be demanded to pay fealty to Jews without any recognition of their own suffering, the item also contains an attack on the genuine anti-Semitism of both the Passion of the Christ and the Catholic League’s William Donahue blaming America’s moral ills on “Hollywood’s secular Jews,” whom he informed MSNBC’s Buchanan, “like anal sex.” Nowhere do I, as Young accuses, hold “Jews responsible for ‘much’ of the suffering of Muslims everywhere,” as I was clearly talking about Palestine, and nor, for the same reasons can I be accused of arguing that “every Muslim is justified in viewing every Jew as the enemy.” As for her accusation that I actually blaming “long-dead Holocaust victims,” well, it boggles the mind that your editors would allow this hateful poison into your newspaper, whatever Young’s motives may be for spreading it.

That a newspaper with the reputation of the Boston Globe would allow itself to be used for Young’s vicious vendetta against me, now twice, is both shameful and shocking. I would appreciate a retraction and apology.
Sincerely,
Eric Alterman
New York, New York

The Corporate State

What is there to even say about a deal between Wal Mart and the DOL which gives Wal Mart notice of any complaints about their labor practices?

And, apparently they now have creative control of DOL's press operations.

Miller to the Grand Jury

Interesting.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that two journalists must testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources in an investigation into a leak that exposed the identity of a covert CIA operative.
The three-judge panel ruled that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine must comply with a subpoena from a grand jury investigating whether the Bush administration illegally leaked the officer's name to the news media.