Peggy Noonan, Stupid Motherfucker

George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

-- Peggy Noonan, Jan. 25 2008 WSJ
Peggy has come a long way since just a few short years ago.

This is what I said: The president won re-election by a relatively healthy margin because the American people judged him to be the better man. He seemed to have the better character of the two candidates. He'd tell you what he was going to do, and why, and then he'd do it. He'd been doing that for four years. He did it in the campaign, too. He was dependable, and he was predictable. It's nice to have a predictable president. It's not nice in the nuclear age to have a surprising one.

Mr. Bush was not known as a sneak or a liar. We have had presidents who were known as sneaks and liars, some quite recently, but that wasn't Mr. Bush, and I believe it was a relief to normal people. That relief was never articulated by anybody I remember hearing, but I believe it had a real if unquantifiable effect on the voters' choice. (WSJ, Nov. 2004)

Honestly, you have to read this whole asinine column from just after the election in 2004 by this stupid ass clown. She talks about Bushs' balls and also quotes the St Crispin day speech from Shakespeare. George Bush? Prince Henry? Yeah, right.

Now he is the bubonic plague? No, Peggy, people like you forced Bush down our throats twice. Now, you are correct, he is destroying your party. Destroying your Reagan legacy and the very core of your party. A party now filled with people exactly like him. Shallow ill bred man-boys, who wouldn't risk their sweet pampered white asses in Iraq or Afghanistan to save anything, let alone their country. Too stupid to smell the end of an error is drawing oh so very near.

While I sit and laugh at sweat beading up on the back of your neck as you realize the bet you made is coming due. Bush and the Republican party tumbling end over end unceasingly heading for the cliff. History is a motherfucker Peggy.

There's more...

“I Meta On A Friday And My Heart Stood Still...”

They (The Candidates) do run, run, run, they do run, runnnnn...

Work's been “that thing John McCain's been asked how to stop” this past week so I've been a little bit pre-occupied. In so doing, there's been quite a bit I haven't had a chance to munch on in the past few li'l ol' days.

And sometimes it's better to step back for a minute and just let the chips fall and see where all the crumbs end up...until a handful of fresh chips is dropped to the floor of course.

Post the New Hampshire Primary and the lingering effects of the Iowa Caucus there are some particularly weighty stories that have emerged. Tales of tears, sexist pile-on blowback, wildly inaccurate polling, great speechifying and somnambulent droning abound have been covered in various degrees in various places here and about. But this post is about certain meta crumbs of the last few days Campaign '08 stories which I find fascinating to analyze and quite illuminating. With that, those aforementioned crumbs—which still have a touch of crunch and haven't yet gone stale....

Immediately after the Iowa Caucus you couldn't take a breath and not have your belly touch a pundit tossing flowers, dirt, and clumpy coffee grounds on the potential Presidential fortunes of Hillary Clinton. The New Hampshire primary results threw the Mantovani on in the middle of the “Hillary is Gone” disco dance party, and let it be said here—I'm kind of happy about that.

Whatever issues I may have with Ms. Clinton—and you'd better damn well believe I do, getting a chance to see Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh and William “No-fact-Checka!” Kristol looking as if they've just noshed on a nice feces sandwich is worth seeing a phoenix-like Hillary rise from the punditry ashes. The idea that Ms. Clinton, the national front-runner and New hampshire front-runner for seemingly an eternity would somehow be doornail dead with a loss in the Granite state on Tuesday was a.): woefully premature speculation on the part of number-crunchers and campaign junkies, and b.): an exposure of naked “hateration” and two-lessons-worth-of-Judo gamesmanship on the part of people who mean progressives no damn good.

The geeks and wonks who sit around and Warhammer out the battles of the campaign season for shits and giggles you can forgive. That's what they live for—the projection of life's greater battles onto the relative mundaneness of the campaign trail. That sort projects everything onto odd, mundane things that naturally boast little excitement. These guys I can easily cut some slack.

But it's the raw “haters” and game-players whose self-immolation over Clinton's “comeback” was the most telling. I'd like to say Rush Limbaugh embarrassed himself with his post-primary bleats about election fraud on the Clinton campaign's part—but to be embarrassed would mean that shame would have to be extant in him. So instead, I'll just say that he merely added more nuts and syrup to his towering sundae of stupid.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews though, comes off the absolute worst of anyone covering or opining during this ramping-up of the campaign season.

His clumsyfuck shilling for Rudy Giuliani has been well documented. Apparently he is driven by kindredness to pull for a fellow rude, hypocritical, northeast, anti-charismatic, lapsed Catholic blowhard to win the election. All fine and good as I'm relatively certain that the solder and welding robots at GM's Detroit Hamtramck plant are backing their brother in transistors Mitt Romney the same way the fossil and museum exhibit community are throwing every iota of their Carbon 14-ed hearts behind John McCain.

But Matthews' deep-seated personal issues came to the fore with his increasingly shrill sandbagging of Hillary Clinton of late. As a loyal “Villager” he can't help this—but as being the only one of them with a daily national TV show while simultaneously being the most objectivity tone-deaf and tantrum-prone, he especially un-distinguished himself with his recent antics. His creepy obsession with the Clintons and their sex life was already de riguer, but the moment he sensed an opportunity to effectively bury the Clintons—especially Hillary who he and the rest of the D.C. society set felt didn't do enough to punish her “NQOCD” husband—he slipped his pundit clown car into fifth gear and plunged downhill into Hateville. Now, he wasn't alone in his trek...but he was without a doubt the most gleeful.

Hillary herself wounded Matthews with a deft little bit of well-timed condescension that made him look simply awful—her reduction of Matthews to a knickered “Little Rascal” obsessed with the unattainable “Miss Crabtree” with the pat on the cheek and an almost sad “Oh, Christopher”, shown here.



In the end, Matthews' leading the sexist charge against a reeling Clinton turned out to be a typically fatal mistake—I believe it was Newt Gingrich who said of the Clintons after a bruising budget battle with the GOP, 'Never give him (them) the chance to appear assailed or the victim'. Not only did she appear to be the victim, but she was the victim—of a blood-in-the-water sensing press, and in more than a small way, she made them pay for their attacks, using the two things that have always kept a bit of wind at her back, namely a strong mobilization of her people at the organizational level, and the good will of a large chunk of the populace.

Matthews though has decided to steal a page from The Kids In The Hall's hapless “Sid”—the Bruce McCullough character who willfully and maniacally runs into opponents outstretched fists in “fights”, and compound his bedshittery—even when confronted with his screw-ups by colleagues Tom Brokaw and Rachel Maddow—on whom I will speak more in just a bit.

I had been writing a post entitled “Transparency” about Matthews' agenda for the better part of a week, but I swear I just couldn't keep up with his adding fresh scoops and toppings to that Goddamn stupid sundae of his. The hyper-defensive twit decided to full-tilt fist-run again today when he proceeded to splutter about the women on ABC's “The View” razzing his dumb ass for his antics, like saying that Clinton's appeal is based largely on sympathy for being cheated on. Never mind the fact that her education and rep as a lawyer put her several leagues beyond his braying, idiotic ass in the smarts category, he defended his word droppings and then lit into the View ladies today on Joe Scarborough's replacement show for Imus on MSNBC (which will now and forever be dubbed “Minus In The Morning” by me—Video at Raw Story).

Matthews said it was Clinton's performance campaigning for New York Sen. Chuck Schumer in 1998, after revelations of her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky, that launched her own senate bid two years later. He said Walters and Behar -- whose name he either was unable to remember or refused to acknowledge -- had their facts wrong.

“Those are this historic facts, Barbara and the other woman, those are the historic facts. I know how you play to a crowd, I know how talk radio works, which is the way a lot of programs work, where you find something to argue about,” Matthews said.

“If Barbara Walters wants to debate history, and politics and what's happened in this country the last 50 years, if she wants to go on Jeopardy and see what she knows and what I know, I'll take her on,” Matthews promised. “If any of the women on that show want to take me on on historic political information ... let's talk political history. Let's talk facts, not opinions, facts, and I'll take them on.”

What's clear is that Matthews is wincing from obvious—and what I'm hearing is internal, as in intra-network— criticism by his peers in the business. The girls across the schoolyard are laughing about word getting out about his exposing his saggy nads during leg-ups in gym, and now he wants to have a fucking boy vs. girls decathlon to shut 'em up once and for all.

Sorry Chrissie, we'll all remember it...and the leg-up picture's goin' in the Goddamn yearbook. Ick.

Now for a little more meta: I learned something many years ago from an Emmy-winning TV director about stagecraft—particularly news stagecraft. In a two anchor set-up, he noted a situation called the “Ba-doomp-boomp” arrangement. When watching a two-anchor newscast from the viewer's eye, the left side of the screen—the first anchor you see is seated in what he called the “Ba-doomp” seat. That's the set-up guy, the lesser of the two anchors. The right-hand anchor is in the “Boomp” seat. He's the finisher, the last word and punctuator and tends to intro “tosses” to remotes, commercials and the ilk.

Pretty much since MSNBC started their big-time coverage this season, they've paired Matthews and Keith Olbermann as the co-anchors, seating Matthews in the “Ba-doomp” seat and Olbermann in the more prestigious “Boomp” spot. In watching the two work together, friction was pretty obvious to the discerning viewer. Matthews was sour and sullen much of the time—particularly when he and Olbermann would toss out their pop-culture bon mots to support statements. Matthews would cite “Leave It To Beaver's” Eddie Haskell as a reference—something lost on nearly every viewer under 40, while Olbermann would mention a current star like Viggo Mortensen or allude to ABC's popular “Desperate Housewives”, eliciting laughs from the crew as Matthews' mentions would stir only wheezes from the McCain/Brimley Postum-sippin' set. More than a few times Matthews sat with his jaw dropped open at some of Olbermann's easier-to-grasp mentions that keyed better into the situation they were applied to, and when he wasn't stumbling while trying to keep up, he just seemed pissy and out-of-sorts.

It didn't help that his boy Rudy's status as a contender was declining every damn time they showed a poll number, or that he was in the “Ba-doomp” seat, much to his chagrin, but there are other factors to be considered, and here's where we get all bitchy and “All About Eve”-ish with the whole newsroom backstage drama thang.

My in-the-hall sources at 30 Rock have long noted grumpiness on Matthews behalf at the ascendancy of Olbermann at the network. It's pretty clear that Matthews is more in the “old boys” camp of Brokaw, Russert and that crowd—the rep-tied “Villager” circle jerk. Olbermann is outside of that circle, yet is the net's star property. That status is confirmed by his “Boomp” chair capacity and a report from TV Newser covering a piece on Olbermann in the newest issue of Men's Journal:

In the interview with Paul Tullis, one focus is Olbermann's habit of, "trashing people publicly, even his employers."

But he seems to be doing well for himself in the office now. Tullis cites a senior executive at MSNBC, who says “Keith runs MSNBC. It's been an amazing turnaround, because two years ago they were going to cancel him. Because of his success, he's in charge. Chris Matthews is infuriated by it.”

Yikes.

It also can't help that Matthews' recent book “Life's A Campaign”, in spite of a cheap half-hour segment on his show where he had his wife interview him (!) as a plug for the thing has tanked something awful in the marketplace. A publishing bigwig I talked to (I work in publishing) said that the only people buying Matthews' book are D.C. insiders who think he'll ask them something about it at a cocktail party and want tot be prepared. Said bigwig also said this:

“He couldn't give away free copies of it at a lopsided table convention.”

Al of this while Olbermann's “Special Comments” book Truth and Consequences is going to enter the NYT bestseller list just out of the top ten this weekend.

That's gotta hurt.

The numbers from Amazon are no better:



And in a final bit of mini-analysis, the Tucker Carlson death-watch gets a little more noticeable. I couldn't help but notice a definite shifting of things at MSNBC in the last ten days of the heavy primary coverage. If you watched you probably caught it too. On the primary nights, Rachel Maddow (who I still have a crush on, as does my stepson now) was featured as an in-studio guest on the panel discussions—NOT TUCKER. She sat there in the comfy, cozy studio with their big guns like Chris Cilizza and Howard Fineman and Pat Buchanan while Tucker was on the chilly-ass road as a stringer. On the night of the Iowa Caucus, he reported from New Hampshire, where nobody but three flinty old guys in Carhartt jackets were. It was the equivalent of a report on the Iditarod where an exciting, key stage just ended and you toss to the finish line for a report...where nobody fucking is. Maddow was in-studio, piquant and buffing her star as Tucky tried to unfreeze his smirk in the chill New England air. She easily topped him that night with an airtime ratio of 10-to-1.

Which is amazing as he's a network show host. Pretty damning.

In the days between Iowa and NH, they featured her even more on the big stage, showing up on all of the net's shows—save for his, and I couldn't help noticing in their promos for “Super Tuesday” coverage their usual wall of photos of correspondents featured Olbermann, Matthews, Mitchell, Shuster, O'Donnell, Scarborough, Lester Holt and even Dan Abrams...but no Tucky.

Come Tuesday night, there's Rachel again, resplendent in-studio and on for hours (including a zesty evisceration of Matthews) and on the road with a speech-stumbling John McCain was Tucker Carlson, effectively reduced to stringer status like the net's lesser lights Ron Mott, Ron Allen, Mike Taibbi and others who stand in the rain for on-scene “stand-ups”.


That's a serious bust-down in status—not to mention that his show was pre-empted on Tuesday for more pre-election coverage by...

...an in-studio Olberman.

They wouldn't even let him do his miserable little show from the Straight Talk Express's toilet, where I'm guessing he was ensconced crying his puffy little eyes out.

Suffer the smarmy, two-left-footed little children.

If you had any doubt about the network's knowing where the weakest link (as Matthews ain't exactly iron-tough himself and is weak himself numbers-wise) link in their chain is, let that doubt be confirmed with their rather brusque curb-kickage of Carlson—a supposed “Village” insider for now ubiquitous presence of the fresh-faced Maddow.

His “glove” ain't good enough to carry his anemic bat on the bench any longer. He knows it—and it showed in his lifeless performances in his limited appearance time.

My original timetable for Tucky's waltz—no, that's a dance...he can't dance!— walk into the sunset was right about now. I'm still hearing it'll be very soon—Maddow MSNBC pilot or not.

Ohhhhhh, an overworked LowerManhattanite can hope, can't he?

P.S. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the readers and commenters who not only read, but enlivened and added so much to the posts “Pride and Palpitations” and “Forget It, He's Rolling” earlier in the week via the comment threads. The experiences and thoughts you shared truly made those posts that much more than they were when originally posted. Again, me and the rest of GNB's backstage folk cannot thank you enough for your interaction. You embodied community.

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The Dish

“I've Heard Things. I've Heard Things!”

Here in New York City, the media/TV community is a rather smallish one, incestuous in the respect that everyone knows everyone, and when a controversial or buzz-worthy project is being worked on, the industry folk in town hears all about it in short time. You also hear about the internal scuttlebutts at various studios and soundstages, newsrooms and green rooms, and control rooms and executive suites—little things that make you go “Hmmm.”, and big in-house things that make you scream “Oh shit!”—in your head at your “cube”, and out loud in rest room gossip sessions.

I know several people who work at NBC's New York headquarters and have written before about internal goings-on at 30 Rockefeller Center, particularly during the Imus debacle and how the building's e-mail system that day went bonkers from a mass near-mutiny of staffers tap-tap-tapping back and forth between each other in anti-Imus indignation directed at the management.

About a month ago I got wind of some information that I was tempted to go with here at GNB, but refrained from doing so because it could have exposed some people I know to serious scrutiny as sources, and also because so much of it was so-called “Inside Baseball”, in-company whispering that it seemed kind of trivial.

But one piece of the puzzle fell like a lead brick into place a couple of weeks ago, and if you're a semi-close MSNBC viewer, you've probably picked up on something funky in the process of going down on air anyways—so what I'm about to tell you will serve only as confirmation of what you've already gleaned.

Our long, national nightmare that is the execrable, “nails-on-a-chalkboard-piped-through-a-speaker-punctured-P.A. system” “Tucker” show is nearing its end. Now, that's not the puzzle piece yet, merely the picture on the puzzle box of the completed image, so bear with me.

If you read Atrios with any regularity, or the website TV Newser, you've no doubt seen the awful ratings grid indicating the viewership numbers—or lack thereof for Carlson (Not to mention his buddy at the peacock, Chris Matthews, and Headline News' brush-haired waterhead, Glenn Beck).

A visual aid shows the numerical carnage best: (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE)



Carlson's numbers have been so horrific that his airtime has been drastically diminished in recent months. After the failure of his show's original “prime” incarnation “The Situation” with Tucker Carlson (where he was thrown up against Jon Stewart's “Daily Show” with all of the fairness of a drunken Verne Troyer going one-on-one against an out-for-blood Lebron James), he was demoted to late afternoons with the simplified “Tucker” program, running first at 4 p.m. and then repeated at 6 p.m. Those numbers cratered so deeply that the Network jettisoned the 4 p.m. first-run hour, leaving him with the 6 p.m. show alone. How bad were the numbers? They didn't replace him with another personality—just a continuation of the afternoon live news anchor wheel. Worse yet, there are NO repeats at all for Tucker's show, while Countdown, Hardball, and even Abrams' shows all get late night (between midnight and 4 a.m.) second showings.

The reasons for this are clear to anyone.

Carlson scans as shittily as any cable news personality going. Bill O'Reilly comes across as more personable (!) in comparison to Little Lord Tuckleroy. The words that come to mind in describing him? Smarmy, Snippy, Jerk, Disingenuous, Hypocritical, Spiteful, Whiny, Putird Hack, and yes...a Dick.

Years ago, I was on a debate team, and had a teacher who grew so frustrated with one kid's annoying, self-pitying style that he just stopped the class cold, slumped his shoulders and sighed at my lame-ass classmate, almost moaning “Young man...I-I don't know what's worse...that you argue in such bad faith—or that you argue in bad faith so damned badly.”

That is the “Carlson Problem”. His style is so pedantic, so off-putting, and so transparently mean-spirited that his frustration shows through and alienates him from the viewers.

Which leads us ever closer to that puzzle piece: Air America's Rachel Maddow.

Now Rachel was a frequent guest on Tucker's show, routinely showing up as his Liberal foil—except for one huge problem: she tended to make Tucky look bad on his own show almost every time she was on. She always came off as well-versed, passionate, verrrrrry affable, physically attractive, non-threatening, and most importantly—quick with a response without coming across as a churlish, nyah-nyah-ing prig—unlike her host. And for a while, she was something of a semi-regular guest, mainly because of the Globetrotter (Maddow) versus the Washington Generals (Carlson) entertainmant of an alleged competition that's actually a showcase for a predictable, but fun-to-watch ass-whipping.

Trouble is, the show itself isn't hosted by the ass-whipping Globetrotters—rather, it's a vehicle for a petulant, and increasingly embarrassed “Washington Generals squad”. So with that, Rachel's appearances on the show dropped to almost nil. But other shows on the network picked her up—like a reluctant Chris Matthews, a very receptive “Countdown”, and a “seeing-the-writing-on-the-wall” Dan Abrams.

As if merely icing her out was the magic panacea for all that ails the increasingly puffy-faced former “pundit-kind”.

You see, the quality-level of his guests has hit bottom faster than an anvil in a two-story elevator shaft. The guests you see on these shows for the most part (unless they're promoting a book) rent themselves out relentlessly as talking heads. An Edwards, a Huckabee, a Richardson, et.al. go on these shows when they have a message to get out—but they don't go on shows where the ratings are so awful, or the scope of influence is so narrow that it isn't worth a damn.

This is why Tucker's big “gets” are the likes of Dick Armey (who no one thinks enough of any more to even pun on his name) and Tom Tancredo. These are the under-the-barrel, scrap-noshers, and Tucker's dim, dank alley of a show is where these losers feast.

Now, back to Ms. Maddow.

You might have noticed recently that she has become almost as ubiquitous on the network as her polar opposite Pat Buchanan. She's on at least three nights a week in segments mainly on Countdown or Abrams, and there's a reason for that—viewers like to see her, as well as her ability to hold her own against even multiple ideological opponents (Something you like to see in a host—heh-heh!). In fact. it seems as though someone was trying to ascertain a “Q” rating for her because of plans to...I dunno, maybe do something special with her.

And then, a friend gave me the following news, which I sat on because as much as it had been rumored about town, people knew it would ruffle some feathers as the network was kind of shady in how they set the whole thing up...

Rachel very quietly taped a pilot for MSNBC. And the site TV Newser broke the news publicly.(via Crooks & Liars)

I myself had heard the story several days before (right after Thanksgiving) from a “tech” person over at Peacock Central and that feelers were already going out to the D.C. set to see what the guest “base” could be like for such a show, (which would be co-hosted by the prime-time VP Bill Wolff.)

Needless to say, the members of the MSNBC He-Man Woman Haters Club are NOT happy with seeing their little mascot Tucky about to be wished into the cornfield. The slimy Joe Scarborough is supposedly all pissy about it, and the pan-faced lout Chris Matthews is openly angry about it, as it indicates a further shift from his “Playboy Club—but no icky girllllz unless they're in bunny suits!” idea of a network. Deep in his mayonnaise-clogged gut, you know it ain't just her progressive status gnawing at him. Her also being an out, proud and very telegenic lesbian really flies in the face of his archaic template for cable news punditry.

Note how dismissive and pissy he gets with her in this post-pilot segment from last week when she dares take a slightly snarky, but truthful opinion he doesn't want to even hear:



MATTHEWS: (TO MADDOW) “You are causing trouble here. Because you don't—I would like to put you on—I would like to waterboard you right now because there's no way on God's earth you believe that! Let's go to Matthew for a straight answer!”

How dare you not play along with my masturbatory little game of “I, Kingmaker...interloper!” Matthews is notorious for his constant mewling about safe spaces for asshole-ish, locker room camaraderie and banter, and seeing a fellow unctuous, neanderthal fuck curb-kicked galls the shit out of him. Here's how he feels about that sort of “fun” and how he defends it:

MATTHEWS:  Can you be Imus without being Imus?  Can he be the brilliant interviewer that he is?  Can he be the guy that‘s very thoughtful on certain things, certainly the expert on music and sports and a lot of other areas?  Can he be that interested political person and still—and get rid all the Vaudeville and the minstrel show and all the bad stuff? 

------------------------------------------------

MATTHEWS:  Can you still be naughty without being naughty?  That‘s the question.  Can you still have that wonderful male craziness that men love.  I‘ve got to tell—I don‘t know if women love it.  Men love it.  They get out of the house in the morning.  They‘ve been with their wife.  They love their wife.  But they can‘t wait to get in the car and listen to a bunch of crazy guys cow snap for an hour on the way to work.  It‘s a locker room environment.  But I think the show can work without some of the bad stuff, because I would hear the bad stuff and I would say, oh, am I doing this show?

All Chris needs is the white, short-sleeved shirt, the fine Haband slacks, cheap tie and horn-rims and the look'll be “Falling Down” complete. He's already got the poor, besieged White guy victim act down like a mother-fuck.

In the doubly sweet ironies of the sword of Damocles' descent upon poor Tucker's laddish mane, munch on these:

1.) Maddow's pilot co-star is Bill Wolff, the former producer of “The Situation”, present MSNBC Prime Time VP, and recent daily guest for the last segment on “Tucker”. Can you all say it in your very best Fred Armisen from SNL voice?—“Awk-ward!”

2.) Maddow and Carlson have a wee bit of a grudge/history thing going back a few years when Maddow first came on Air America with Lizz Winstead on the morning show “Unfiltered”. Shortly afterward, Carlson would debut with yet another failing single-season TV vehicle on PBS...entitled “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered”. There was more than a bit of zinging back and forth between his and Maddow's camps over the “biting” of monikers. Now, something beyond a mere moniker may be “bitten”.

3.) In noting the ratings jump of the network as it does seem to be offering itself as a more progressive alternative to the scrape-knuckled Fox and the wheel-stuck CNN, there has been a bit of a turn in the tenor of chunks of the programming—particularly the one-time, sure-as-gravity wingnuttiness of the network's GM and after-Olbermann air personality Dan Abrams. He's a friend of Tucker's, as is virtually everyone in the media—or rather, a friend of Tucker's dad, a former news anchor, ambassador, Beltway insider (USIA director), and top dog at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and with that friendship came the patronage and protection of the remnants of Tucky's show in spite of his “Babes”-on FOX-level ratings. But Abrams has had to turn his back on the ideals that his dear friend Carlson holds so close to his shriveled heart, as evidenced by his new administration-ragging regular segment “Bush League Justice”. Abrams along with Wolff as execs (in addition to their on-air personality hats) have found themselves responding to the changing tide and new demand to see more progressive viewpoints and lesser batshit winger nattering with the promotion of Maddow and David Shuster, while whittling T.C.'s airtime down from prime, from two hours to one, and from one repeat to zero. Friends are friends, but when your ratings are down 10% while the network's is up 30%, you are a drag, dead weight, a boat anchor...a “black hole” that corporate cries out to get fixed. The little twerp, sensing the “Turk's” call (“Coach wants you...and bring your playbook.”) even stepped out for some CYA time. If you watch the show (“If” being the operative word), you may remember Carlson doing a series of shows from Los Angeles a few months ago. Well...he was there shooting a game show pilot for CBS.

Didn't Ted Baxter do the same thing on Mary Tyler Moore, prompting Lou to derisively taunt Ted with the line “I'm a QUIZ-master!”? How deliciously apt. From newser to schmoozer. “Ted and Tucky sittin' in a tree, S-H-I-L-L-I-N-G!” That'll lay an egomaniac low. Really low.

Thus, we saw this flippant, pissy sign-off to one episode of his daily train derailment over a gorge last month:

Tonight, as he was signing off, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson closed by saying, "That does it for us. Thank you for watching as always, we mean that sincerely to all eight of you. We'll be back Monday. Up next, "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. Have a great weekend."

A TVNewser tipster tells us "MSNBC management [is] infuriated" at Tucker's flippant sign-off.

See, Conan O'Brian can make that joke because when he does it, he's being self-deprecating, and playing the populist geek vibe while knowing that he does have a huge popularity and the numbers to back it up. When Tucky does it, he's openly grousing and sticking it to the network that's on his ass by calling attention to a failure. And my sources tell me that “pissed” isn't the word. They're throwing around “unprofessional” and “baby”. Yikes!

But that's okay, because the swirling rumors have triggered—the birth, or rather...stillbirth of a “Save Tucker” online cam-oh, Goddamn! Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!-cam-cam-paign!

And as the writing's not just on the wall, but scrawled in smoke across the sky and freshly painted in white in the middle of Main Street, we thus see...Rachel's pilot.

My grapevine originally had it a month ago with Tucky being gone by New Year's. the date I'm hearing now is post the Iowa caucuses.

Will it be Rachel taking the slot? Perhaps not a direct 6 p.m. replacement, but the more likely scenario involves a shifting of the schedule, with the “new” show filling the resulting hour-long gap.

However it turns out, there's been a shift of affections over at the peacock—from the failure-magnet “Ted McGinley” of cable news to the peppy, likable, smart and attractive (Yes, I think I have a crush on her—how perfectly un-attainable.) Maddow.

This should be fun to watch...in that fucked-up, “voted-off-the-island” reality-TV kind of way. I just wonder where Tucky's gonna land next? Dancin' on “Soul Train” and workin; the scramble board? Naaaaaah, they finally cancelled ST a couple of years ago. Somewhere on FOX? Sadly, he's so shitty I don't think even they would have him. That game show pilot? Yeah, but only if it's called “Let's Dunk The Jerk”, and Carlson sits over the tank. Where, where, where?

I suppose there's always YouTube. :)

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No, No, NO!

photo of Belle by Sherry

Enough of this Hillary Is Unelectable Crap

I've had it.

Democrats can't even do a circular firing squad right.

• We're opposed to gun control (expect for Presidential candidates triangulating for independent voters.)
• Half the firing squad will show up late or not at all.
  
• Everyone's against capital punishment so now we're arguing if we can't just taser the luckless bastard.
• And ten percent want Ralph Nader to take over (again), because there's no real difference between a Democratic firing squad and the Republicans.

Horseshit.

"Oh, Hillary can't get elected."

"I'd never vote for Hillary."

"Corpses will rise from their freaking graves" to vote against her, y'all cry.

Yes indeed.

If we're to listen to the frantic whining of you petulant fucks whom clearly God herself couldn't please, if "that woman" is nominated for President, a veritable avalanche of diseased, decaying and deceased Republicans will arise, descend on the polls of America in a shit storm of body parts and blood not seen since Omaha Beach, burying that hapless helpless female and smother the bitch to death.

God bless America.

And some of you go on to say, you won't vote for her either.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?

Did Ralph Nader not make an impression on you? Has seven years of George "I'm the Decider and I De-cider" Bush not burned itself in the blood of others into every fucking cell of your body?

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

Republican. Democratic. There's a difference.

I don't care if the Party of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton nominate a one-eyed three-legged dog for President. If she's on the ticket, I'm voting her in.

No Republicans, no third-party candidates, no withholding votes.

I vote the straight party-line Democratic Party ticket.

Twenty-seven percent of Americans support George Bush. Stop buying into the enemy's frame. They want you to believe Hillary is unelectable. They want you to believe she can't win.

She's a Clinton you fools. Of course she's electable. Why in the hell do you think the enemy is putting so goddamn much effort into convincing you she isn't?!

Knock it off. Stop doing their work. Stop talking up their frame -- it's a lie.

A one-eyed three-legged dog. I don't care who is on the Democratic Ticket. They get all my support and every dollar I can spare.

Republicans are the enemy. The Democratic Party is our friend and the hope of 220 years of the United States of America.

Is there a difference between the candidates in the Democratic Party? Of course. Campaign away, fight hard, and may the candidate you dream of, win the nomination. But when the nomination's locked, shut the hell up, get behind the plow and push.

If you don't get we're fighting for the survival of the United States, you're not paying attention.

Hilary Clinton is incredibly electable. The people who have you believing otherwise are Republicans and their media allies, terrified they can't beat her.

Stop buying lies. Stop spreading lies.

Knock that "unelectable" crap off.

There's more...

The National Review: Such Pretty Lies

Click for high def

Byron York Embarrasses Himself... Again

The National Review, home of bigots, cowards and fools, has outdone itself with the latest from the "Breck Girl of the right," Bryon York.

Let's deconstruct some of the bullshit:

National Review - Bryon York

Has MoveOn Betrayed the Democratic Party?

No.

Another edition of Short Answers to Foolish Questions.

With its full-page "General Betray Us?" ad in the New York Times, MoveOn.org has once again put itself at the forefront of the antiwar movement. And if past patterns are any guide, a number of Democrats are embarrassed, and even angered, by MoveOn’s actions but are afraid to reveal the true extent of their feelings. MoveOn simply has too much fundraising clout — and a fear-inducing inclination to attack Democrats who stray from the MoveOn line — for many in the party to take it on.

Well, yeah.

Afraid? Of being called liars for siding with General Betray Us? Well... he is.

He went to Congress today and lied. The numbers he gave them weren't true. He said the attacks are going down. Sunday, Hubris pointed out the attacks are going up. As did the Washington Post Thursday citing a GAO report.

While General Petraeus is busy lying to Congress in order to make the surge look good (what has Bush/Cheney promised him?), the GAO, the back pages of the Washington Post, TPM & TPM again, DailyKos, and others are all struggling to find the truth. And the truth looks very much like General David Petraeus, Liar liar pants on fire.

Let's take a swing through some numbers and citations.

GAO

It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased—a key security benchmark—since it is difficult to measure perpetrators’ intents, and various other measures of population security from different sources show differing trends. As displayed in figure 4, average daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007.

Washington Post

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome."

Challenges to how military and intelligence statistics are tallied and used have been a staple of the Iraq war. In its December 2006 report, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group identified "significant underreporting of violence," noting that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the sources of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the data base." The report concluded that "good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."

Recent estimates by the media, outside groups and some government agencies have called the military's findings into question. The Associated Press last week counted 1,809 civilian deaths in August, making it the highest monthly total this year, with 27,564 civilians killed overall since the AP began collecting data in April 2005.

Talking Points Memo

The one set of numbers we've found that appears to go back some way (a couple years) and have a consistent methodology are those compiled by the Associated Press from police reports about deaths in Iraq. To further the confusion, though, the AP seems unwilling to assemble these numbers together in one place, so you need to go back and piece together the separate monthly numbers from individual stories.

So far, with some sleuthing yesterday by myself and Spencer Ackerman, we've got these numbers.

Jan 07: 1,604
Feb 07: 1,552
March 07: 1,572*
April 07:
May 07: 2155
June 07: 1640
July 07: 1760
August 07: 1809

Got that?

a) Deaths are UP. Not down as the General told Congress today. Up.

b) The base numbers are off. "Information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." That means not just a little off. Systematic under-reporting from the military. This happened in Vietnam, just the other way. Body counts were used to measure progress.

When ever people are measured based on a statistic, they will figure out a way to game the stat. Enormous integrity is necessary FROM THE TOP DOWN in order to get truthful numbers. And the last thing anyone at the top of the Bush administration has is integrity. Or wants is truthful numbers.

All of which makes General David Petraeus a big ol' liar, pulling a hat trick of lies:

1. Intentionally lying to Congress;

2. The military system of systematic lies, and

3. Loyal soldier in the chain of command stove-piping hot lies to Das AllIstGuhFuchtBunker for Dick to feast as he eats BRAINS, plotting evil while playing Risk with school girls and nuns.

Now why would members of Congress be worried about siding with the General or taking on MoveOn.org? See, Bryon baby pookey bear, when you're backing a liar -- and it isn't like these numbers weren't known yesterday before Petraeus left for the hill -- it's stupid to piss people off who are ready and able to confront you with the hard facts.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore is evil, blah blah blah.

Several leading Democrats, including then-Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, showed up at the movie's Washington premiere. But the connection with MoveOn worried other Democrats. "You've got to reject Michael Moore and the MoveOn crowd," Al From, of the Democratic Leadership Council, remarked, calling MoveOn's members "elites, people who sit in their basements all the time and play on their computers." Other critics noticed that MoveOn attracted a membership that was mostly white, well-to-do, far-to-the-left, and not entirely representative of the Democratic party as a whole.

STOP. Rewind.

"A membership that was mostly white."

I've got your obsession with race right here, scuzzball, sung by the master. (Bring it Gilly.)

Al From. Al-fucking-From, loser of elections. Triangulator supreme-o. A Republican's Democrat? That Al From? The asshole?

A modest suggestion. Al From and the entire DLC can move to Eureka California and make an honest living growing weed in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Not like they're ever going to man up a 50 in the sandbox. Or even an aid station, you know? At least they can try and bring a little happiness to an AIDS patient, since the Gods know they've managed to fuck up the last eight years of our lives with incompetent advice.

Listen chuckles. Ain't no one stupid enough to listen to them again; conversely anyone who does by definition is out of the Democratic mainstream. Really, no kidding. Candidates may take DNC money but From and his corporate & media pals don't get to sit at the strategy table. Al From and the DNC blow two incredibly winnable national and countless state & local races. Who the fuck listens to repeat losers running the same losing strategy even though the entire world has changed? Oh... yeah, you are a George Bush republican. Sorry.

Nice try with the whole concern troll bait though.

A quick point. No one here says the Petraeus is a traitor. That's classic right-wing crap designed to force the middle to stay away lest they be tared unpatriotic American-hating commies. We didn't call the General a traitor. Right-wing attack dogs did hoping for raw meat. Who is the traitor to America and doesn't respect our troops? Who keeps voting down VA reform?

Now, with the "General Betray Us" campaign, those Democrats again face the question: Do they dare to cross MoveOn? Not long after the 2004 elections, Pariser famously said of Democrats, "Now it's our party. We bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."

You radically don't understand. You didn't understand when Gilly explained it to all y'all bitches a year ago. You don't understand now. Not gonna understand when we're done.

Like demonstrating the number three to someone who lives inside the set of even numbers. Move a three into the set of even numbers and what happens to the three?:

1. Shows up as an even number.
2. Goes "poof" and vanishes into nothing as it hits the set boundary. Literally can not exist inside the set. To an observer inside, nothing happens. No "poof"; nothing.
3. Is invisible. Able to act, but can not be seen. Only ever can act with the properties of an even number.

• There may well be others I haven't thought of; maths isn't my specialty.
• The point is, inside the set of even numbers, the number three can not be, or at least, can not function as a three, can only "be" as an even number. Why? Because it's in the set of even numbers.
  

What I'm trying to say to you... What Steve Gilliard said to y'all fifteen months ago... This is outside the ontology you committedly and unexaminedly live. To get this requires shifting into a reality-based non-authoritarian quantum world. Any interpretation you make from where you now live will have as much validity as a kid in kindergarten assessing a Ph.D. physics project: "Oh... shiny." You just can't get there from here.

I'll use small words anyway although no way I'm gonna improve Gilly's original riff (linked below.)

Listen up... This whole Pariser quote:

Now it's our party. We bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.

MoveOn doesn't own anyone. They aren't leading anyone. Markos doesn't lead anyone, and neither do Jane or Josh. To talk about MoveOn owning the party misunderstands fundamental what they mean.

Yes, they meant something but you have to get it, intuitively like a Zen person grasping a koan. Otherwise it's just a bunch of annoying words which piss you off. No wonder MoveOn has you pissing your pants.

The people of the United States are angry. They're tired of being lied to and told to be afraid. They're VERY tired of incompetence, corruption, and fundamentalism galloping through their government. Economic giveaways to the wealthy. And war. Especially wars.

Liberal democrats are good people, many of whom believe in God. So many of them likely would not actually rip you and the entire Bush administration limb from limb given a chance. Although you shouldn't risk it. A hell of a lot more of us have served in the military than you have.

Blogs and groups like MoveOn are here because people want a focus for their commitment to make a difference. We're not driven by fear and anger and surrendering control to Big Daddy like right-wing sexually-repressed in-the-closet nut jobs. We do our best to live in the real world, making our very own decisions based on information available.

It's a bit more messy but has resulted in civil rights to social security, womens' suffrage to the winning of two world wars. Not to mention the longest economic success in the history of the United States. *waves to President William "Bill" Clinton*

Republicans fought bitterly against all this "progress", up to and including selling weapons to our mortal enemies. GWB's grand-pappy was there. There are records.

No one owns anything, least of all MoveOn. (Although your historical ancestors owned slaves, as did the people currently voting Republican in the south. What is this obsession with control?)

They: TPM, DailyKos, firedoglake, even Salon and Huffington Post, let alone an emerging publisher such as Group News Blog... we're happy if we just manage to get our posts up and do a good job writing. Our readers -- MoveOn's donors -- will go somewhere else in a moment if we fail to deliver the goods.

What goods? Oh yeah...that.

I'm the Publisher & Editor. I also write, that is, I blog. Last week my colleague Lower Manhattanite wrote “Do you understand where you are?”, what I consider the single-best article on racism I've read as an adult.

The article was a grand-slam home run for us, our single most successful story to date linked by hundreds of sites including the front pages of some of the largest blogs in the world. Teachers wrote they are assigning LM's piece to University classes. Simply reading the comments left others and I in tears.

LM's article changed everything for us. We didn't lead anything. He wrote what he wrote and people responded. We can't write hits to order. No one can. Well... maybe Willie Nelson.

Lead? *cracks up* You should join Al From in California smoking weed. We just work every day to put out a good publication, build a certain reputation, and take care of our readers.

What lies beyond? Hell if I know. Although... there's always “Surge Seasoning”.

What I am certain of is... I am not in control of people. For sure, not our readers. I love them. They're smart, funny and talented. But they have their own desires, wants and concerns. They move where they move when they move. If they wouldn't tolerate Steve telling them what to do for ten seconds -- and they didn't -- why in the hell would they take it from me or our gang for five?

Steve Gilliard

Let me send this message to the consultant class right now, the right will miss it. You do not have to worry about Kos, Atrios, Matt Stoller or anyone else, certainly not me. We are not your problem. It's enough to control what's posted to our blogs on a daily basis.

Our readers, otoh, are a different story. They hate you, they would like nothing better than to drive you from business and into penury. They would hunt you down like dogs and seize your homes. They blame you for ruining America. Bloggers are just conduits for the feelings of lots of people. You confuse the two at your peril. Anyone who thinks our readers are docile slaves, well, they're nuts. They can challenge us like it was a sport. Parse our words like lawyers. And you can never tell what will drive someone nuts.

Piss them off and you've got a problem. We know, we've all done it. Kos has been the scene of nasty fights, same with most sites. Our readers hold us accountable in a way which would make Jake Tapper cry.

It was the readers who propelled the Lamont bid, not the blogs. At best, we're pointmen for a lot of ordinary people. People forget that at their peril.

Anyone stupid enough to think Pariser meant it when he said he "owned" the party, simply doesn't understand Pariser, MoveOn, people, or how modern media works enough for anyone to ever take them seriously or listen to them again.

Not that anyone outside of your own echo-chamber is, you twerp.

So why then did I break all this down? Courtesy.

This article helps knock down some common right-wing lies. More importantly, it helps provide what Sara Robinson calls Landing Zones, a safe place for disillusioned soon-to-be-former right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers, bravely tunneling and bridging out of authoritarian groups. These people need to know they are welcome here. And that you're a goof-ball and the DNC are idiots. *smiles sweetly*

When we make mistakes here at GNB, our readers call us on them immediately. And they don't stfu till we fix them. *sighs* (I mean, how wonderful it is our readers pay such close attention.) In the last 24 hours I've fixed at least one mistake...on a post already scrolling off home page, ordered a book recommended by a reader, put up a "Breaking" story emailed by a regular, and haven't slept in 24 30+ hours. I'm not directing anyone. Damn.

I don't expect you or the other pointy-hat NR fools to get it. You still don't have Iraq right and that's well...

Hell.

There's more...

A War We Just Might Win -- My Ass

The usual suspects are out there softening up the ground for next month when CENTCOM is expected to report on the success of the surge. All around the MSM and the right wing blogosphere we are getting the same old synchronized swimming exercises from the asshats on the right.

It sort of started with O'Hanlan, and Pollack's recent trip to Iraq and their pollyanna New York Times piece. Then you have the AP's Robert Burns' Analysis: Military Shows Gains in Iraq not to be confused with the drunkard Scottish poet. The AP's man is not a poet nor is he Scottish. Please note the word 'Analysis:' in his title. Lets not forget the bloodthirsty lunkhead Max Boot and his piece Irrational OptimismRational Optimism on Iraq. Also note Boots' first sentence The evidence of gains being made on the ground in Iraq continues to pile up.

You can read all of these pieces of dreck and you would learn absolutely nothing about WHY the surge is supposedly working. Oh you will hear about how morale is high! and comments from various military officials and 'two analysts' (presumably we dont get their names because is TOP SECRET, sshhhhh!). I guess my favorite bit from the OHanlon/Pollack piece has to be this:

The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers

The heavily armed American soldiers standing there 'protecting' the two NYTimes reporters from being murdered. I'll bet the Sunni's seemed genuinely happy indeed, at least if they know whats good for them.

You can sift through all of of these pieces and you wont find any piles of evidence, or even a single piece of evidence. You can hear the piles of bullshit and silly anecdotal stories with ham handed adjectives oddly prefixed to things. for instance: superb commander;Reliable police officers;Outstanding Marine captain;Highly effective Third Infantry Division;Sustainable stability. I suppose they had the boys in marketing punch it up for them. "How about this J.G! They arent just police officers, theyre 'Reliable Police Officers'., Thanks boys!"

What you wont hear from them is it is very, very HOT in Iraq right now as Juan Cole points out. The wingnuts ability to march in lockstep is not to be underestimated. OHanlon, to Boot, to Reynolds. Just like clockwork. Do these lickspittle syncophants ever get tired of advocating more death?

There's more...