bustardblog

Wing Nut Stupidity

Today, Atrios entitled a link about the rights reaction to Speaker Pelosi wearing a veil with the phrase Just when I think they can't get any more fucking stupid. This is a really common sentiment for anyone who follows the insane narratives put out by the wingnuts.

He was writing of the reaction on the right to Pelosi putting on a scarf when she visited the tomb of a Roman Catholic Saint in Damascus. (She was also carrying a message from Israeli P.M. Olmert to Syria, in attempt to avoid war this summer. This is probably what got the Right so upset.)

It's a tough choice - but the outrage they are expressing over Michael Ware's possible giggles during the McCain news conference is possibly even stupider. They complain that if it is true that Ware giggled, then he should be immediately hanged and quartered along with his employer, - as his biased lack of objectivity was proven.

As Raw story has noted, he absolutely denies that he laughed, and an Agence France Press reporter whose story started this mess has supported him.

The fact is that if those at the press conference were objective, every single one of them would have burst into guffaws of laughter. McCain's photo-op was so preposterous it should have had them rolling in the aisles. Michael Ware has been living in Iraq for most of the last 4 years - to hear McCain talk about safety in Baghdad after a walk protected by 100 soldiers and five helicopters must have felt absurd.

It may be trite, but the press are not meant to act as mere stenographers.  When the U.S. Press reported on Soviet Show Trials they did not report just repeat the "party line." Does no one remember the laughter that greeted Jimmy Carter after his tussle with the "Killer Rabbit."(photo)  When George Romney explained the changes in his Viet Nam policies by saying that he had been "brainwashed," the entire press corps expressed their amazement, and amusement.

But guys like Redstate have shifted their outragemobiles into high gear:

"Much of the press corps there in the Green Zone, it seems, have become third-rate activists, childishly mocking that which doesn't fit their model."

The day after McCain's visit, 21 workers in the market he visited were killed. This isn't about fitting "a model." This is reality in Iraq. This was a photo-op that took twenty-one lives.

And it's reality that the wing nuts need to distort.  If you were charged with a crime, Say Anything is not someone you want on the jury. He finds a video inconclusive, so Ware is guilty. The giggle, if it happened, came from the back. Ware was in the back, so Ware is guilty.   Powerlies, as so often is the case, is the worst. They e-mailed the A.F.P. reporter as follows:

" ' I wonder if you would be willing to identify the journalist sitting in back who was giggling at the press confereence.

Jennie Matthew promptly responded:

    Scott: I'm afraid I cannot.

    Best,
    Jennie '
    As I read that, she can -- but she chooses not to"
(emphasis added.)

He offers absolutely no reason for his conclusion.

Sorry Atrios, but it seems that they can always get stupider.

(h/t memeorandum)

Powerline Lies: Again.

Powerline today:

The Inspector General said it was "inappropriate" for Feith's group to question the wisdom of the CIA's dogma that Saddam Hussein, a "secularist," would never cooperate with bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists. (emphasis added)

This statement is not true. In no way does it accurately describe that which the Inspector General called "inappropriate."

Please go to the Defense Department Web Site to see the truth. Please remember that this most recent patriot that Powerline chooses to smear is a combat veteran, who was appointed Inspector General by Donald Rumsfeld.

Values, Giuliani, and McCain

The Internets are a powerful learning tool, so it's no wonder W. is very fond of them all.

Let's say your kid needs help understanding a concept, for example the idea of hypocrisy.  All you'd have to do is go to today's memeorandum and look at some of the sites listed there, such as ABP, Powerline, or Daily Pundit. Or almost any of them.

The posts comment on the apparent loss by a Giuliani aid of their "playbook" for the start of the 2008 election. The book mentions some of the possible problems that Rudy will have as he runs for President, such as Jean Nathan Giuliani (Wife #3) and Donna Hanover (Wife #2). All of them seem to think the "accidental" appearance of the book is no big deal - after all these are "known" problems.

"These problems" involve sleeping with your third wife while still married to and living with your second wife. They involve having still another mistress while married to wife #2 - one who worked for Rudy at City Hall.  They involve letting wife #2 and your kids learn that you are suing for divorce  by watching you in a news conference with your mistress at your side. And there is more like this, much more.

None of the right wing bloggers are bothered by these facts. They are only "problems" that are to be dealt with.

Bill Quick of daily pundit wrote

However, I didn’t see anything in there about Giuliani having been a traitor to his nation while in uniform*, and that guy came within a whisker of the White House, so as far as I’m concerned, Giuliani’s good to go.

This is clearly a slimy smear on John Kerry, and dishonest though it is, it makes it clear that the hypocrites on the right in fact care less about values than they do about winning. If Giuliani looks like he can win, values be damned!  Rudy is a man utterly devoid of a moral compass.

And it does look as if Rudy could end up the nominee. At the moment McCain is ahead in New Hampshire 29% vs 25% in a recent poll. But this lead in insufficient if he has any chance to win the nomination. After all, New Hampshire, which is 96% white, is not a state that cares a lot about Rudy's ability to trump using the race card.

A large part of Rudy's success in previous elections is based on a racist appeal.  He talks a lot about 'law and order' and his (grossly exaggerated) record of fighting crime in N.Y. While he was Mayor, he generally refused to talk to leaders of the African American community.  When he ran for Mayor, his supporters enjoyed calling his opponent, David Dinkins, a black former marine, the "washroom attendant." 

Additionally, McCain spent a lot of time campaigning in New Hampshire 8 years ago, and the people there know him. If he is not well ahead in that state at this point, it looks like trouble.  Rudy also enjoys the advantage of being out of office, and of never having served in a legislative body.  He can be the tough man, without actually having to make any tough decisions.  Much as I disagree with the "McCain Doctrine," as some are calling the option of increasing the number of our troops in Iraq, at least McCain has made a clear choice.   Rudy has the luxury of avoiding specifics, and instead tries to dance around the issue.

* As Mr Quick must know, Rudy never actually wore a uniform.   

Powerlies: Part Deux

Today has been relatively calm in Baghdad - so far. There were 30 killed and 48 wounded this morning in Hurriya, a Sunni neighborhood, apparently in retaliation for the attack on the Health Ministry. Today's fighting was so intense that neither the police force nor the army in Baghdad felt strong enough to intervene. Fighting continued unabated until the U.S. army took control.
In Tal Afar 22 were killed and 30 were wounded today.
In the province of Anbar, a fighting between more and less secular Sunnis continued to increase.
Reading these figures just reignites my fury at Powerline's constant distortions. In my post yesterday I railed against their lies, and I referred to a piece of theirs which called it unfair to characterize the situation in Iraq as a bloodbath, and said that while it is violent, it is not "comparable to a civil war."
Of course just over a year ago, according to Powerline, there was a "rebellion that has broken out." The capital city was "Burning." It was  described as "up in flames." On November 7 of last year, Powerline entitled a post "Civil War in Eurabia" - the title of the next day's post clarified that to commenting on "Civil War in France."
On November 9 they wrote that "the statistics are still grim, and some of the recent attacks are among the worst." It was in this same post that they felt the need to characterize the situation as  "the rebellion that has broken out in France."
But on that "grim" day Powerline noted that "No one was hurt."  And the attacks that were "among the worst?" They were attacks on parked cars. In total two people in France died as a result of that "Civil War," and of course one of those was the victim of a heart attack.
I leave it to the good folks at Powerline to do the math and  compare the frequency of  car attacks in Paris, Baghdad, Philadelphia and DC for November of '05. I will not not leave it them to redefine words at their will - to deny that there is now a bloodbath in Baghdad and that Iraq in anything but a  disaster.

Safety in Baghdad

Powerline, like Malkin and the rest of their sorry tribe, can be so depressing. Not just because I disagree with most of their positions - I do. But their politicization of every fact makes discussion and debate almost impossible.
Once again Assocket is saying that Iraq is really pretty much as safe as cities like Washington DC, Chicago, or Philadelphia.
He knows he's lying.
If he were awarded a prize from the Rotary Club of Chicago or Philadelphia, and an all expenses paid trip  was provided for him to accept the award - he'd be there in a flash. How long would it take him to accept the award if were to be awarded by the Baghdad Rotary Club at the Baghdad Hilton?
He also knows he's lying when it comes to the numbers.
He compares the number of civilian dead to the total Iraqi population, and concludes that there really is no civil war there. Not included are members of the new Iraqi Army who have died, nor even members of the Coalition forces who have been killed. They don't count. It's as if he were to say that there were not many serious casualties in the U.S. Civil War, because we don't count soldiers - only women and children.
Bush has twice paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., even though Powerline thinks that it is about as safe as Baghdad. Let's see Assrocket and Bush march down Mutanabi Street in Baghdad some time soon.

Poohline

Assrocket of Poohline has a hilarious spoof of himself posted today. He claims to have spent 40 minutes in a somewhat private meeting with Bush  - in fact, it was the most inspiring 40 minutes of his political career, but he was unable to provide specifics. None, but dub-ya did talk a lot about freedom.

The rocket delights in the fatuousness -

"I have never seen a politician speak so evidently from the heart, about big issues--freedom, most of all."

And then skirts dangerously close to the Orwellian truth -

"His persona is very much that of the big brother."

If Dub-ya had not had such Oedipal problems, he'd be happily running a summer golf camp in Florida for teen-aged guys. Perhaps the Assrocket would be head counselor. Then it would not matter that neither of them knows the difference between a human "right" and an "issue."

Powerline Insults Sullivan

One of the many organizations utterly beyond my ken is the Log Cabin Republicans. I don't remember reading about a Gays for Hitler movement. While travelling Central America, I never saw the ruins of the Aztec temple that housed the "Viva Espana Partido." Did Sitting Bull ever erect a Welcome Tent for General Custer?

In case any more evidence of who conservatives really are, one need only look to the shorter version of the explanation offered by Hugh Hewitt (And applauded by Powerline), as to why Andrew Sullivan changed his position in Iraq from Pro-War to Anti- War:

    '180 Degree Turn By Sully- Frightened Faggot Flips'

Powerline's longer version follows:

"This morning, Hugh Hewitt did a lengthy post on the "180s"--conservatives, some real and some faux, and others, who once supported President Bush on the war and now have turned against him. Hugh makes many good points along the way. His skewering of Andrew Sullivan is priceless:

The same path has been traveled by Andrew Sullivan, who soured on the war as soon as it sunk in that same-sex married couples would not be allowed to fight it."

There's simply no room for a Log Cabin in the Republican "Big Tent."

 

A Token of the Conservatives

As we all know, discussing identity politics is just another of the innumerable liberal failings. The left is always playing the gay card, or the race card, or the whatever card, while  the right is above such issues.  They believe that race should not be a consideration in any decision, which is why affirmative action is so evil. Bloggers like Michelle Malkin and Powerline are firm in their assertion that race is not a factor to them.  Positive comments from both adorn the site of the conservative, African-American female blogger, LaShawn Barber.
After Bush finally spoke at the NAACP conference, I was curious to check out Ms Barber's site.  One thing she had to say was to describe that organization as just a social club of Limousine Liberal Negros. This week she also condemned the concept of reparations, because "blacks already receive reparation with every lowered standard, every welfare check.." Now you see why wing-nuts love her.
In her own comments on Bush's speech, Malkin linked to Barber. Both she and Powerline link to her quite often.
They link to her quite often when she writes about - identity politics. I looked at the last 50 links from Michelle. I divided links into two categories - one I called major, in which the link includes and extensive quote, or a real description. I called links where Barber is just a mention as minor links (the link lists, or the ones that say "More from LaShawnBarber", for example). Eight major links* were to posts where the subject was identity politics; and there was only one major link to a post about a different topic. Twenty minor links went to identity fifteen went to other subjects. Powerline did not link so often, but there is the same pattern. Six major links were to a post about identity politics, one went to a post concerned with another matter.
Malkin and her friends at Powerline agree on many things - one of which is that an African-American woman is really an expert only on being an African-American Woman. The right has decided to embrace her because of her race. Her race enables them to agree with her condemnation of other victims of discrimination without appearing racist or insensitive. The poor woman benefits from a twisted form of  affirmative action, even as she denounces it. 

N.B. Similarity to Justice Clarence ("victim of a high tech lynching") Thomas.

* some examples of such links are here and here

I also analyzed many links from Instapundit to Ms Barber, and I have to say that no such pattern emerged. He linked to her posts on a wide array of topics. Two Points for Mr. Reynolds.

Lies: Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post in which conclusive proof is offered showing that the outrage expressed by Bush over the New York Times "leak" was a complete fraud.
Yesterday we made two basic points:

• That there were in fact no damaging details in the Times article.  An individual with Osama's sophistication would have expected our examination of SWIFT transfers, since it was exactly what Bush had announced he would do in his Press Conference of Sept 24, 2001.
• That this is part of a pattern of behavior by this administration. The same play was performed over six months ago when the Times committed the "crime" of publishing damaging details of the government's wiretapping program.  It is clear that no one is being prosecuted in any way for that "crime."

Today we will look at other indications that this show of outrage is purely political theater and at the possibility that the play's director may also have been the leak-er:

• The same morning that the  New York Times published the story, it was also published in the Wall Street Journal. Yet no one is calling them disgraceful. In fact the Journal has refused to give definitive answers concerning their discussions with the government about the leaks. When questioned about this, Tony Snow instructed his questioner to ask the Treasury Department. Treasury has not responded to inquiries as of this morning. Snow went on to say that the Times was being focused on because it had the story first. The Times did have the story first, but it did not publish it first. It was asked by the government not to publish, and it withheld publication until it had weighed  the administration's arguments. If we are to believe that any information "damaging" to our nation's security was published, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are equally guilty. Yet they are not being equally condemned by the right.
• Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine"  had already broken the story. It states on page 144 that "Initiatives launched by Treasury and CIA were getting better at tracking money as it passed through accounts across the world...[using] international banking compacts." The most significant "banking compact" is, of course, SWIFT. Why not slam Suskind's book, as they did the New York Times?
• The possibility that Rove was directly involved in this leak is supported by the fact that he has leaked to the press before for vicious partisan reasons. (He leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Matt Cooper.  Ms. Plame's covert status at that time was confirmed by the Republican Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, who was appointed by Republican Attorney General Ashcroft.) His pattern of spreading lies and disinformation as a campaign tactic is undeniable. (Governor Ann Richards was dominated by lesbians, McCain has a black baby, Gore's receipt of a tape showing Bush preparing for a debate after which Rove screams Foul!, after which a Bush worker admitted that she has given it to the Gore campaign; The Swiftboating of Kerry, Smearing Murtha)
• Just as Howard Dean, and now Hillary Clinton have built relationships on the left side of the blogosphere, I am sure that Rove and his operatives have done the same on the right side.  Thus it is no surprise how the captains of the wingnut-o-sphere spoke so quickly and with one voice.  Powerline supported and quoted John MacEntyre's writing in RealClear Politics "this is a huge win politically for Bush," "The issue plays to Bush's strengths and continues to paint the picture of the President as a stalwart fighter,protecting America's safety while the left-wing press does their best to undermine...[him]." Bill Kristol and MacEntyre see the opportunity to harm Hillary Clinton especially.  Hugh Hewitt asks soldiers serving in Iraq to write letters to the mainstream media saying that the Times was making their lives more dangerous. (Just a few days ago, the right was making the argument that those who suffer personally should have no more influence on the convbersation than any other American.)  Prairie Pundit wrote that "The terrorist rights lobby in Washington would rather lose the war than stop a terrorist ploy by surveillance."

This entire damned episode may not actually have been engineered by Rove. But he certainly took advantage of it in that slimy way he has that is evocative of nothing so much as pond scum. A phony "leak."  A torrent of abuse deluging the N.Y. Times, and only the Times.  A complete diversion from the truth of what SWIFT is and it's place in international finance. And a deafening chorus of croaks and ribbets from the frogs that are the right side of the blogosphere.

The current adminsitration is composed of scum-encrusted liars.

AdNag & The YearlyKos

I won't speculate on AdNag's responsibility for the photograph that accompanied his demeaning piece about bloggers and the YearlKos convention.  His disdainful attitude towards bloggers was amply demonstrated by his article alone.
His description of Ned Lamont's career will be taught in Journalism Schools as an example of lazy reporting. In 1984 Mr. Lamont founded "Lamont Digital Systems (LDS), a privately held company focused on building advanced telecommunications platforms for residential gated communities and colleges and universities." The article calls hims a "cable television executive."
He also wrote that

Blogging is nowhere near the force among Republicans as it is among Democrats, and talk radio is a much more effective tool for Republicans.

I was sure that this statement was wildly off the mark, but I am happy to report that in fact the left is more successful at blogging than the right, although the margin is much smaller than AdNag would have you believe. There are 7 left-leaning blogs in today's technorati top 100 rating, and 6 right-leaning ones.  I wasn't able to get technorati's list for 6 months ago, and instead analysed feedster's  Nov/Dec 2005 list.  At that time 14 of the top 100 blogs were wingnuts, and 11 were proud moonbats.

(One of the nicest things to notice is the decline in the popularity of Assrocket's Powerline.)