bustardblog

A.P. Photo of Kimberly Dozier en Route to Hospital in Germany

  A.P. Photo of Kimberly Dozier en Route to Hospital in Germany 
  Originally uploaded by bbbustard.

Yeah, there's a person there.
Now do you think we will hear an apology from Laura Ingraham for mocking the courage of journalists? Now - that more journalists have been killed in Iraq than in Viet Nam or in WWII?
I think not. Instead, we can look forward to a particularly vicious piece by Ann Coulter - who has turned a really vibrant green with jealousy over the coverage Ms Ingraham has been receiving.
I tone down my outrage only out of respect for Ms. Dozier, and Messrs. Brolan and Douglas

T.F.'s

It was just two TomFriedmans ago that Vice President Dick Cheney announced that the insurgency was in its "last throes." It was May 31, 2005 that CNN reported on his statement. Since then, 805 more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
Today's NY Times reports that the Pentagon's quarterly report to the Congress yesterday said that the "strength of the insurgents 'will likely remain steady throughout 2006'" but "will begin to wane in early 2007." In other words, it will remain constant for a little more than one TomFriedman.  Assuming that the Pentagon is not being overly optimistic, Cheney will be proven wrong by more than three TomFriedmans, and over 1200 U.S. Dead.
Why can't he just go back to shooting friends in the face?
P.S. When did the U.S. Government decide to run on TomFriedman time.

Iranian Economic Immigration

Today, Condi Rice held a news conference in which she broached the idea of talking with Iran. The President has finally decided to appoint a person with intelligence, competence and backbone to the Cabinet. Recently, his speech on Immigration could be considered reasonable by thinking people.

Is this the beginning of the end for the Cheney and Rumsfeld?

NTodd-A-Thon

Please go visit NTodd - it's not as if it's a particularly great site, but it's also not as if I am asking you to go to a whole lot of trouble either.

The Suffering of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Scanlon

Please double click to enlarge
The house suggests modesty, and it is deceptively small - there are a whole lot of square feet there. Many of Mr. Scanlon's previous houses have been less unobtrusive. Still, since it's value is  a bit over two million dollars, we feel that a charity collection for poor Mr. Scanlon would be a bit premature.

In a way, it's the best possible kind of house to install one's wife, if you're going to be out of town for a few years: the best neighborhood in town, equal to the best neighborhood in the state, without being flashy.

Rico would not have done it better -

Scanlon & Scandal

Memorial Day Weekend, and the public tennis courts are full in Rehoboth Beach. It's a great day to be playing outside, and the two private courts at the Henlopen Acres Beach Club are more booked up than is usual for this early in the season. I don't know if Scanlon reserved a play time there or not but he is a tennis buff.

Yesterday was the first day of work for life guards at the beach here. I'm not sure what their pay is for this season, but last year it was $11.65 per hour. That is what Republican operative and former Abramoff partner Michael Scanlon was paid for the six day a week jobs, which he had done as a kid, and again in 2002 through 2005.  Although he wanted to serve, Scanlon was not hired to be a guard this season. There was concern that his notoriety would be disturbing to beach goers here. There is no indication that he had ever tried to serve in the National Guard.

Tennis playing in Iraq was not so easy this weekend. A coach and two players were stopped, and told to get out of their car. Unknown assailants noted that they were wearing shorts, so they shot and killed them. There had been warnings that shorts were not acceptable, but I guess these three didn't know how dangerous shorts can be.

Happily for Michael Scanlon the U.S. is a different place. Because he had been Tom DeLay's press secretary, the boyish looking lobbyist was picked by Abramoff to form a partnership.  They eventually stole 80 million from the Indian tribes that they were "representing."

As part of his plea deal Scanlon will have to return about 19 million; but it seems clear that he will still be a multimillionaire as a result of his crimes. Last year he bought a house in Rehoboth, currently valued at over 2 million.  It is in his wife's name. Seven years his junior, he met this, his second wife, while she was working as a waitress one summer. State records indicate that there are six properties in Southern Delaware still in his own name. Under the Bush administration, crime does pay. 

She's not exactly suffering either, but it almost makes you feel sorry for Martha Stewart. And she says that tennis whites are a "good thing."

Beach Blogging

Gentle Reader,

With great regret, I must admit that Beach Blanket Bingo Beat Blogging today.  A real attempt will be made tomorrow.

Thanking you for your tolerance, from the Atlantic Shores of Southern Delaware,

bbbustard

Yes to the Elite!

Once again Paul Krugman hits it out of the park. The right lies and distorts. Our lazy, intimidated Press thinks it more fun to mock than to admire a brilliant, competent, honest public servant. One can only hope that we as a people have matured enough to select actually qualified people to  run our government.

The right has been fond of mocking us lefties as being elitists. For the last five years, we have responded by crying "foul" since both Cheney and Bush attended Yale, as did so many others in this adminsistration. But the fact is that we should start to brag of our elitism.  Believing that we should be governed by the smartest, most competent people available is no crime.

The elitism we should be proud of is not one based on family history and the name of the college attended. If nothing else W should have showed us that a "distinguished" family means nothing in terms of competence. We also have to recognize that although Cheney attended Yale; he could not make it through. Bush was only admitted by virtue of the college's affirmative action program for legacy applicants.

America was founded in part to to stop the practice of having the leader determinedby his inheritance rather than his ability - the hope was to establish a country ruled by it's elite - but an elite defined by intelligence, honesty and competence. Alexander Hamilton was an illegitimate child, and an immigrant. He rose to the top levels of our government because of what his ability, not his parentage.  On this issue I am more of an originalist than Scalia ever could be. Let the elite, the real elite, rule!!

Liddy's Secret

As I tried to express yesterday, I found the NY Times article on the state of the Clinton Union both disheartening and deeply inappropriate, as well as depressing. If I was a teacher I guess I'd have to give it 3xD's - in my school three 'D's meant that you failed.

There are many who think Hillary unfit for the Presidency because of her husband's piccadilloes. Whether she,herself, is qualified is what merits discussion,not Bill's past.

Would a male candidate's qualifications be dismissed  because of his wife's sexual behavior?  I think not. Yet there are many who argue that a future spent dealing with Clinton "psychodrama" is just too much. They are not concerned with who finding the most qualified candidate, only with who is easier on the palate.

Does anyone analyze how many weekends Sen Liddy Dole spends with her Washington based husband, the Senator of Viagra, Robert Dole? I'd bet that there are a lot of Saturday nights when she is consuming chicken at constituent events in Greensboro, while he is sadly swallowing his pills in their home at the Watergate, with a few more oysters, hoping that Monica, or one of the Wilde temporary employees will stop by the apartment. But Monica now sells handbags and, the country needs a sincere, effective President.

God Help Us!

In various posts over the past few months I have praised our major newspapers. Both the New York Times and The Washington Post actually employ reporters who engage in journalism. A quick glance at The Washington Times and at Fox News proves how remarkable and necessary this really is.
So far this week, however, I must join the throngs who mourn for just how low these papers have sunk. In today's WaPo the portrait painted of Sen "Bill Frist: A Doctor at Heart" is nauseating in its adulation of its subject. When a dentist describes him as "A little bit like Superman" you can hear the writer panting like the dog whose heart Frist once held in his hands. The heart never made it back into the dog, just as the capacity to think critically never made it back into the "reporter's" brain.  While discussing what a wonderful, caring surgeon Frist is, the writer never mentions either Terry Schiavo nor why Frist gave up his medical career in order to engage in malpractice on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
It was as close to journalism as yesterday's NY Times piece on the State of the Union, of the Clintons. The writer of that piece claimed to interview fifty people in order to prepare the worthless article. If only it had exerted the same energy in investigating the claims made in Bush's 2003 State of the Union, the lives of almost 2,500 soldiers might have been saved.
The reaction to the Times piece by Time magazine's blogger, Andrew Sullivan, was absurd. First he blames the Clinton's for causing the  piece by saying that that "they have all but insisted we analyze" the marriage. He then argues that Bill's having cheated on his wife with Ms Lewinsky all but disqualifies Hillary from the Presidency. Not only is this clearly sexist; it's unfairness to Mrs Gingrinch and Mrs Giuliani is obvious.
I can only hope that the Sulzberger, Graham, and Luce families, all accept my condolences for their, and our nation's, loss.