Campaign '08: Republicans' Law

If It Can Go Wrong...It Absolutely Will. Yikes!

From the Department of “From Bad To Worse”, you may remember this piece of news from the recent GOP bed-shit post dealing with the potential loss of New York's one Republican Congressional seat —“Baby Daddy Trauma: Vito Power-less

NY's wingnuts finally found a sap to run for Fossella's abandoned seat, Todt Hill resident Frank Powers, but not without having several candidates they asked say 'Are you out of your fucking minds? I got belly-button lint to pick, man!, and keep on steppin'. Thus with one fell swoop, or actually several rather unfortunate boudoir up-swoops and down-swoops, yet another Empire State Republican not only screwed up his political career and for extra measure, very possibly chucked a sure seat the party desperately needed to hold against an elephant-drowning sea-change on the way...

Well, even having chosen Vito's replacement candidate, that seat was going to be a tough one to hold, especially with the rampant apathy towards Republican candidates in New York City. But hey, there was a chance to hold serve at least with a fill-in firmly in place, right?

I mean, what could happen next? Powers ending up as the old saying goes “caught with a live girl or a dead boy”?

Er...I guess there's no delicate way to say this...Um...how about just ending up dead.?

Yes...D-E-A-D, dead.

Francis H. Powers, a retired Wall Street executive who was recently selected by Republican leaders on Staten Island as their candidate for the Congressional seat being vacated by Representative Vito J. Fossella, died on Saturday at his home on Staten Island.

Mr. Powers, who was 67, died in his sleep of a heart attack, family members and friends said. His death came less than a month after he became the Republican candidate after other potential candidates decided not to run.

Mr. Powers’s death leaves Republicans in the Congressional district, which also includes part of Brooklyn, with a new set of political challenges. The decision to endorse Mr. Powers came after a long and dispiriting process for party leaders, who had initially hoped to get one of the island’s Republican elected officials to run for the seat.

But one by one, each of them declined to run, citing a variety of reasons.

You can not make this stuff up...

So now, the party is back at square minus eleven or something like that, scratching about yet again for someone...Goddammit, ANYBODY! Please!, to run in Fossella's stead—a seeming herculean task to begin with as the initial approach-ees as noted above upon Vito's fade-out ran from the opportunity like it had a big, runny boil on its lip and was movin' in close, whispering “Kissy-kissy!”

New York State's GOP isn't just imploding, people—it is imploding on a freaky karmic level that mere coincidence can't explain. Now, I'm not reveling in any way in Powers' death, but my God, just looking at the situation electorally you just have to shake your head and say “Wow. Right about now, it truly sucks to be a wingnut in New York”.

Well, suck might be too light a word for what's going on for them in New York State. Vacuums like a space-station airlock gone awry is more like it. Enter, or rather...exit...stage right, the state's highest ranking GOP pol—State Senator Joe Bruno...

Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader and New York State's highest-ranking Republican, said Monday evening that he would not seek re-election in November, after a 32-year career in the Senate.

His announcement startled people in the Capitol, many of whom have come to view Mr. Bruno, a former Army regimental boxing champion who still spars for the cameras, as almost indestructible at the age of 79.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Daily News reported this morning that when Bruno made his decision to leave, he had his lawyer call the FBI to ask if his stepping down might influence their investigation.

According to the paper, the FBI never got back to Bruno's lawyer, and no deal was ever offered.

But Bruno has denied that the FBI investigation had anything to do with his decision. For the time being, Bruno will continue in his Senate seat, but he says he has not decided if he will carry out the remainder of his term.

Meanwhile, CBS 6 political analyst Fred Dicker is also reporting in today's New York Post that federal agents removed some 30 boxes of papers -- some dating back more than a decade -- from Bruno's office just before he made the decision to step down as Senate Majority Leader.

Bruno if you don't remember was the beté noir of disgraced former NY Governor Eliot (“Black Sox”) Spitzer. Those two went at each other hammer and tong, macheté to hatchet for years, going back to Spitzer's Attorney General days upstate, and Spitzer's ignominious exit should have cemented Bruno's power cornerstone-hard. He was at the point of his retirement/booking the hell up, the state's second-most powerful politico, and not to put too macabre an edge on it, the next in line of succession to the Governorship under the state's arcane rules. Were anything to happen to the present governor David Paterson, (and the way the NY press has swarmed him seemingly every week since his swearing-in for term-ending dirt, the possibility wasn't a terribly distant one) Bruno stood the most to gain.

But inexplicably to outsiders, and painfully clear to even casually-acquanited NYers, Bruno's stepping down and away was very much related to the increasingly intense federal investigation around his years of upstate skullduggery and feather-bedding for himself and a northern state GOP that ripped off the more populous and higher revenue-generating downstate to the tune of billions of dollars.

It was the nerdy, bean-counting, pasty-faced and sock garter-wearing ghost of Eliot Spitzer's investigations coming a' calling. That, and a punk-ass's fear of a couple of other things too...

One: The state senate's going Dem majority for the first time in thirty-odd years, (on the verge of and with a Dem wave, a near certainty) relegating the high-flying, egomaniac Bruno to the low-down bust-down to minority back-bencher—which in the New York State Senate is to be powerless to the N'th anti-power. That is a bruising insult he could not stand, and his beloved senate district of Muttontown (NY's a big state people, and that's a tame name for an upstate hamlet—trust me...) bearing the brunt of Democrats retribution for his own punishment of opposition party cities was probably too much to take.

And Two: Fear of being held responsible in any way for the state's GOP strengths melting away like a bodybuilder's physique when the he can't get the 'roids any more. The coming Republican debacle is going to spawn one lovely schadenfreude-ic thing for a lot of people—namely the Republican Party's calling out of scapegoats for the disaster. When the party bosses tally up the carnage, especially the utter defoliation of elected Republican pols in the northeast, they're gonna look to blame people. And while Bruno doesn't run the state party per sé, he is its most powerful member in New York, and his upstate fiefdom was the incubator for the party's congressional talent. They're all gone now though. GOP Reps Sue Kelly, John Sweeney and Sherwood Boehlert all lost their seats in the House during the last disastrous “The Math”-filled go-round. All of 'em. And when the man comes around lookin' to “git somebody”, 'cause somebody's always got to be 'got' when the shit goes down, I don't think Joe Bruno wanted his name in that unholy number.

We see this in spades (insert obligatory wingnut racist Obama joke du hour here) all over the country as Republican fortunes become as popular as buy orders for Countrywide stock and candidates run from the party's damaged brand like light-struck roaches. The only wingnut stupid enough to proudly run on typical GOP talking points and the ValuJet-like Bush legacy is the odious Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and that saggy, nad-faced viper isn't even up for re-election this year. Not that you'd know that from his seemingly twice-weekly TV appearances from his office in Outer Idiotville—Population: Him. It's comical really, watching him run with stale-ass talking points that barely carried the day post September 11th, today in 2008.. This so-called former “democrat” (small “d” in-fucking-tentional, thank you) mind you, embarrassingly waving the standard like an extra in a dinner theater “Les Miz” for his fucked-to-all-hell masters, singing “One Sellout More”—and not realizing that the damned thing is ablaze in his hands, and there is no “crusade” to join. Just him. Woefully out of step with the reality his “new” friends are running from.

But perhaps a better visual for the folly of Lieberman's dim-witted pimping all of that old, laughable folderol is one that actually involves...a pimp. Picture a goofy, over-the-top, one-time “playa” who's been “away” from the game for too long—and decides to make the public scene again.

Except he's out of step with everything going on and looks like a Goddamned fool sporting the hopelessly dated trappings of his one-time heyday.

Joe...you are so, sooooooooo not a “fly guy”...



The words that breaks the poor pimp's spirit—and his glass-bottomed, fishy-filled platform shoes are the guffawed “This brotha is an endangered species!”, and “You look like a clown!”

“Endangered species”, indeed. It's the plight of elected Northeastern Republicans like Joe Bruno, Vito Fossella, and the Connecticut Dodo-to-be himself, ol' “Short Ride Joe” Lieberman himself. It's an almost sad spectacle to see. Like seeing old faded photos of slow-moving Bison being picked off by blunderbusses from the caboose of a hunting train. And it's not just northeastern GOP'ers fearing the electoral shotgun's blast. Embattled Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon doesn't want anybody in the Beaver State to think for a second during this election season that he even knows the letters G-O-and-P are in the Goddamned alphabet. His grasping little campaign ad makes him out to be a first-class “P.O.O.” (“Pal Of Obama”) and doesn't dare ever mention the Republican party that got him in there any-fucking-where.

God! Either they don't wanna run for office at all, or those that are pressured into it, have the worst of luck befall them. And the ones fighting to remain in office don't seem to even wanna identify with the party proper.

Oh yes...the GOP's fortunes this year certainly are shaping up to be what we on the internets like to call a “fail”.

An “epic fail” in fact. Where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, Like the ironic fire truck fire shown at the top of this post.

But confidentially...I think the picture below just might sum up the nature of things GOP that...much...better...

There's more...

“It's Stupid's Economy”

It Burns. The Stupid And God Knows, The Money.

For the first six-and-a-half years of the delusional Bush presidency, in the face of a sea of blunders—The War in Iraq, Katrina/FEMA, The destruction of confidence in the Justice Department, to name but a few—the one thing he was able to point a poop aroma-ed finger at with a modicum of feel good-ism was “the economy”.

Now, saying the economy was “doing great” was always a dervish-necessary job. Regular folks' financial states have long been a red-headed stepchild to Wall Street performance numbers. They've also been eminently taffy-like when projected against often subjective pulse-taking through prisms like consumer confidence levels and the like. That said, there were just enough numericals out there to spout that could gloss over the pains that “Johnny Lunchpail” and “Susie Run-in-her-stocking” were experiencing while trying to make ends meet from month to month.

Bush himself was saying that the economy was “robust” as recently as five months ago, when it was evident to anyone with eyes and a wallet (which when opened, moths would fly from sickly) that our collective money situation was not “funny”.

(AFP) — US President George W. Bush predicted in an interview Tuesday that the battered US dollar will get stronger because the US economy is robust.

“If people would look at the strength of our economy, they'd realize why, you know, I believe that the dollar will be stronger,” Bush told the Fox Business Network.

Yes, Mr, President. If, if, if. And if your mother had wheels? Ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-nnnnnn, she'd be a bitchin' locomotive, too.

I'm no economic expert. I'm just a person like everyone not in the “Pioneer” rolodex who has felt the pinch for the last year or so, unlike those shielded from the reality of the price of a quart of milk's having gone up. This president would fail that test worse than his spiral-eyed father did when confronted with a question on it during his fateful re-election run. Ask Dubya the price of a “quart” and he'd probably say “Who cares? It's worth whatever you pay 'em when they hand you the presidency! (Insert all-too-familiar, wheedling “Muttley”-esque laugh here)

It's the little things you see, and have to live with—that hammer our country's financial health and then send it swirling turd-like down the “Trainspotting” toilet of insolvency. (NSFW)

There are the homes in the neighborhood that I've seen two families moving out of under cover of night, only to see a few days later a foreclosure sticker plastered on the front door. Those are the ones i saw. It doesn't include the houses I've simply seen the stickers on after being vacated.

There are the people like the man on my block whose SUV has sat in his driveway for the last five months or so. When I saw him this past Saturday as I walked to the park, I asked him if his car was alright. Did it have a problem? I knew a mechanic who was trustworthy and decently priced. But he demurred. “Gas costs too much”, he said. “What was I gonna do, pay for gas or oil heat this winter? I don't sleep in the car.”

Which made sense to me.

“You lookin' to buy? It's only got 16,000 miles on it.”

No thanks, br'uh.

That uptick in the price of gas. No...“uptick” isn't the right word. It's a patriotic, bald eagle-like soar into the clouds. The lowest-priced gas in the neighborhood is at the Hess station five blocks away, at $3.43 per gallon for Regular. $3.65 for Premium. The jitney cars who run their cabs up and down the main drag here have upped their prices for the run to the subway station. A Town Car packed with five passengers was $1.50 per rider up until the end of January. Had been since I moved here in 2001.

It's $2.00 now. The increase was pegged to the rising price of gasoline. That gas price rise is something that registers not a whit in the hereditary hand-down of real-world economic stupid that our vapor-like president shares with his father.

During a White House news conference Thursday morning, President Bush said the country is not headed into a recession, noting that the government has acted "robustly." His view of the economy, however, is far more chipper than that of many economists, who fear the country is entering a recession (or may even already be in one. In fact, when asked by a reporter about what advice he'd given an average American, who is faced by the prospect of $4 gallon gas, the President responded: "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. ... I know it's high now."

The gas prices effect everything. There are signs in local eateries citing rising costs for meals due to pass-alongs from wholesalers and delivery outfits. Even the local White Castle. An argument there late one night arose from a customer's being angry over having come in late with exact change for a combo she'd evidently been getting with regularity. She would be short this night—by about thirty cents. After a heated argument with the countergirl, said countergirl said “All our stuff comes in on a trailer. Gas went up. I'm sorry...there's nothing we could do”. Another patron generously handed the woman the thirty-cent difference, but for her it was about “principle”.

“And when gas comes down, are your prices gonna come down?”, she asked angrily.

The man in front of me and behind the angry woman harshly laughed out a snappy response.

“The fuck makes you think it's gonna come down?”

“Ba-doomp-boomp. Psssssh.”

It's real. As real as a person's money not being right when the price of a 2 1/2 inch burger goes from 54¢ to 59¢. Or a jitney ride the price goes up on. The car you can't afford to drive. A mortgage you skip lunches to pay. It's not some hazy, head game people are being mass hypnotized into believing—a desperate lie uttered ironically by one of the chief practitioners of the talking point / mass hypnosis game.

How did that old toy commercial go? “Some kids go, whooooo-woop! When they sit and spin...” Take it away Ms. Matalin.

Today on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Tim Russert pointed to a new CNBC poll showing that 83 percent of the American public rates the U.S. economy as only fair/poor. Right-wing strategist Mary Matalin tried to brush off that number, stating that most Americans are nevertheless happy about their personal finances.

When liberal strategist Bob Shrum pointed out that her statement is false, Matalin switched to the well-worn tactic of blaming the media for the problem:

MATALIN: Well, there’s an element of cognitive dissonance there, because if you ask them how their own personal finances are going, those numbers completely switch. Yes — he’s looking around. Those numbers are completely true. They absolutely switch on their own personal finances.

SHRUM: I think most people are getting very insecure about their personal finances.

MATALIN: That’s because they’re berated with these numbers.

As Johnny Carson would have said, “Wrong, rusty machete face!”

The numbers...are real: Painfully, brutally real. Via the Times today...

The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets are unleashing a widening wave of bankruptcies in American retailing, prompting thousands of store closings that are expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country.

Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.

But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states. It may file for bankruptcy as early as this week, according to people briefed on the matter.

Even retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash through what could be a long economic downturn. Over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will start to shutter 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.

The surging cost of necessities has led to a national belt-tightening among consumers. Figures released on Monday showed that spending on food and gasoline is crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.

The numbers are reality. The mortgage collapse, called by Atrios for many months before it would be acknowledged by the press and government. “Big Shitpile” he dubbed it. Could there be a more apt phrase for it? Companies we've come to see as part of the daily fabric of things shimmer and practically disappear like something transporting away on the Starship Enterprise. Bear Stearns. Nationwide. Beamed into insolvency.

Jobs? Matalin brooch-ugly. The country needs to rack up approximately 200,000 per month just to keep up with attrition. We went through months on end of numbers coming in between 50 and 120 thousand—some months under 20,000 created, equalling a net loss—then a few break-even months as the news from big name companies grew rank like a mystery dead mouse behind a wall. “Where's that smell coming from?”

And then, the first three months of 2008. The mystery death-stink concentrates in one spot.

January 2008: A loss of 76,000 jobs.

February 2008: A loss of another 76,000 jobs.

March 2008: A loss of 80,000 jobs.

NET LOSS INCLUDING FINAL REVISIONS OF THE JANUARY AND FEBRUARY NUMBERS:
232,000.

Real. And painful. As late as the end of 2007 and this president (yes, I lower-case this man's shitmire of a tenure intentionally) was still hanging on to the foggy-brained lie that things were good economically. But what do you expect from a man who strums his way through a great American city's drowning, then upon looking at bloated bodies floating like bars of liquefying soap in the floodwaters, only to proclaim a “Heckuva job” was being done by those doddering incompetents in place to fix it. And as recently as forty days ago, this increasingly irrelevant “man” proudly proclaimed that we were not entering a recession...but rather, “a slowdown”

There's this guy who works for you Mr. Bush. His title is that of Federal Reserve Chief. Drop him a line sometime and get your Pollyanna-on-Wild-Turkey ass acquainted.

WASHINGTON - Ben Bernanke knows a recession when he sees one, and he’s starting to sound like that’s just what he expects to see.

A student of the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve chairman once served on the very panel of experts that unofficially determines when recessions begin and end — a finding that usually comes well after the fact.

Now for the first time, Bernanke as Fed chief acknowledged on Wednesday that the U.S. could reel into recession from the powerful punches of housing, credit and financial crises.

And so it sits. Reeking. The one thing...The one God-awful thing this president could halfway spin as if not a success, then not a Hindenburgian failure—the economy he trumpeted—goes up in a ball of flames. Thanks to his negligence. Shortsighted-ness. Tax-cut handouts to his rich friends and a dollar-gobbling sinkhole of a war. Yes...I got that same insulting little piece of...mail you got last month.

“Stimulus package”. Woo-Goddamn-hoo. The mumble-mouthed sorry after the two-by-four to the head and the steel-toed kick 'tween the posts.

The legacy is complete. Let the mortgage-burning party begin, ironically as the companies burn along with it. You own it in total Mr. Bush. This white elephant, money-pit of an economy. On your watch. Resulting from your over-action and simultaneous in-action. Enron, and HealthSouth, and Tyco, and all manner of corporate-kleptocracy fostered and profited from by your friends who gigglingly fucked hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions of people out of their money as you “hooked 'em up”. You own that. No “shell” corporation. You. Di-rectly.

Yours, oh now-reigning king of “the ownership society” you so crowed about.

What do they say? “Membership...has its privileges”?

Enjoy the “perks”.

There's more...

Yippee-Ki-Yay-Motherfucker.

What's that old Tom Petty song again? Oh yeah—Free-fallin'!

Too many lead weights in a fella's pockets makes it awfully hard for him to not fall the hell down.

And our dear friend Rudolph's got more lead weights on him than anybody we know. Thus...a yippee-ki-yay-motherfucker moment—via TPM:

In a sign that his campaign in New Hampshire could be flagging, Rudy Giuliani has been significantly scaling back his ad buys in the state. Records show that numerous ad buys in the Boston TV stations have either been cut by more than half, or cancelled entirely.

The campaign has kept up its buys in the much cheaper WMUR in Manchester, where Rudy has a strong base of support thanks in part to the mayor's endorsement — so Rudy might be going trying for a decent second or third through a strong, concentrated showing there. And the campaign is shifting its resources to Florida, where Rudy is also sinking fast.

As Giuliani plummets to the ghetto of single digit-ville support in Iowa, backslides to third place in South Carolina (where he led until a week or so ago) and now has fallen behind in Florida, in spite of heavily-touted northeastern “snowbird” support, there are many out there who seem surprised at his seemingly sudden “Man Who Fell To Earth” routine.

If you read this blog, you shouldn't be amongst that group. Giuliani's over-stuffed American Touristers full of campaign-killing dirty-dealing were going to be a huge problem for him the moment the press' equivalent of airport X-rays got through looking at him even a little bit. And a mere hard week's worth of digging on their parts was that little bit—albeit way too much for Rudy's glass Xmas ornament-tough campaign to handle.

He is merely the most morally and ethically compromised candidate of ALL of the GOP's choices—and that's one hell of a thing when you consider how damaaged they all are. Giuliani was living on borrowed time to begin with. In choosing between the lessers, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Lucifer, and The Anti-Christ, Giuliani's P.R. savvy Satan got a bit of a free ride for a while. But as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.“. Rudy's details, oozing from within, and showing on his very skin like sweat are slimy and putrid indeed.

And no matter how tough, or how hardcore you may appear , no one wants to be around you when you sweat and smell.

Even the odious-himself Bill Kristol can't stand Rudy's ammonia-strong funk:

“What's the agenda for the Giuliani presidency? So I think he made it all about himself, about his record, but when you make it about yourself, it's also about other aspects of your past—and that stuff's emerged that much more, and I think a lot of Republicans look up and say 'Look he's a good mayor, he did well on 9-11, but why should we make him President?”

When FOX News'—“The Official Network of Rudy 'Razor-Lips' Giuliani”—main Sunday pundit puts pennies on Rudy's eyes...kiddies...he's a free-fallin' in a major way.

Is there any lead left in his pencil at all?

Doesn't look very good right now, does it?

Yippee-Ki-Yay-Motherfucker.

There's more...

An Ugly Place In The Sun

“How Many Times Have I Told You Never To Call Me Here?!

One of the joys of watching classic films is that so many of the plots from them mirror themes and events in contemporary life, giving them an even deeper, more lasting resonance. The clambering ingenue's ugly deposing of the beloved female star in 1948's “All About Eve” would play out in many ways in the real-life Deborah Norville / Jane Pauley “Today” show trainwreck in the late eighties. And there's 1960's “Elmer Gantry”—the then-shocking tale of a self-serving, game-running man-of-the-cloth, that would presage by many years the common knowledge of the hypocrisy and out-and-out double-dealing of too many “stars” of the evangelical movement.

One of my favorite films of all time is 1951's “A Place In The Sun”. I consider it one third of the trilogy of films that opened the second half of the century casting a truly critical eye on the dark side of The American Dream—films that documented the curdling of the sweet milk of what America long portrayed itself to be—how in spite of the sing-song, feel good-ism on our surface, too many of us casually traded values for vainglory. The other two films in that trilogy would handle the newly-plumbed theme too. 1951's “Ace In The Hole” by Billy Wilder spoke to the cynicism and outright venality of the media and press in the way it manipulated news for its own gain. His 1950 gem, “Sunset Boulevard” was a scathing indictment of the rarely-discussed disposability and “souls-for-rent” nature of the Hollywood system. But “A Place In the Sun” is a special case—dealing with the alliances we make for lurid, self-serving convenience, and how hard it is to break them when they're no longer...eh...convenient...and the price we pay for doing so.

That's a theme we're seeing play itself out in an ugly, but schadenfreude-laced way with the GOP's secular hierarchy's sudden freak-out over the ascendancy of hard-core Christianist Mike Huckabee in the polls. It's coming most loudly from their chardonnay-sippin' (and sometimes harder liquor) set—the Peggy Noonans, Charles Krauthammers, Rich Lowrys, and George Wills of the world. You see, they've come to realize that they can't move forward using the fundamentalists and their faith issues as a wedge any more. The fundie vote scares them because of its narrow-casting, and because that part of “the base” wants something in return finally for the decade they've put in backing the GOP's less scripture-wedded-in-actual-practice candidates—never mind that in the general elections the fundie candidate Huckabee would more than likely lose horribly.

That primary-activated base wants a prize, a bauble for their years of, as we say 'round the way, “giving it up”—a candidate they can call their own—a Huckabee. And fuck the party's powers if they want to ditch 'em for someone more palatable...someone more presentable.

Put on your asbestos long johns and check out the meltdown—Chernobyl by the Potomac, as the “CEO” (“Christmas and Easter Only) Republicans try to acquaint the party's Christianist wing with a close-up of the GOP bus' chassis—via John Cole's Balloon Juice:

It really is pretty awesome watching the Republican panic about Mike Huckabee set in, especially as he moves ahead in the polls in several states. This quote from Sullivan really sums it up:

Every complacent secular Republican who has scorned those of us worried about the fundie right is beginning to squirm in the face of Huckabee’s surge.

And squirm is putting it lightly. Also via Sully, Ace:

Not that what one blogger thinks matters that much, but if Huckabee gets the nomination, I’m voting Democratic. It’s not just an idle threat; I just won’t vote for him and in fact won’t even vote third party or stay home.

Dan Riehl:

That Presidential “R” in 2008 will stand for nothing I believe in. The guy is slick but doesn’t even look competent. And if Republican primary voters are that stupid, they deserve to lose next Fall. To pass over McCain, Thompson, Romney and Giuliani ONLY because someone’s slick and a Jesus Freak, which makes him your average televangelist – forget it.

We will pause for a moment to let it sink in that the Dan Riehl right now views actual social cons as “Jesus Freaks.”

Ohhhhh, my. Now, let's take a look at good ol' “A Place in The Sun”:

(In) A Place in the Sun, Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies...

Now, there's no intentional irony involved my casting of Montgomery Clift—in real life a closeted gay man—as the GOP hierarchy all too willing to ditch the chippie he bagged for kicks. That's just the way the movie plays out. He used the frumpy Alice (the fundies) for his own personal play-toy until he found something “better” and wanted to move on. But if you've ever seen the movie (and you really should!), you know how it all turns out.

SPOILER ALERT! Winters' Alice won't let her man walk away just like that, and puts the screws to him with her demands, especially after he's gotten her “in trouble”. Clift's Eastman, realizing that his hopes for a perfect future will slip away, passive-aggressively does away with the clutchy, desperate Alice...and in so doing manages to utterly wreck his entire world.

I just loooooooove how these old movies foreshadow life...

After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

We're witnessing that creepy, internal battle Clift's Eastman went through right before our eyes as the Republican party begins to consume itself over its sport-fucking that fundie base and now trying to ditch them when they call in their chips for all that wanton shtupping since '94. And to give the devil his due, Andrew Sullivan's been all over this as soon as the first acrid whiffs of the increasingly over-the-top, and hypocritical religion-bashing from the right's leading lights wafted by.

He sums it up thusly:

And that is why part of me, I confess, wants Huckabee to win. So he can lose. So the GOP can lose - as spectacularly and humiliatingly as possible. If we are to rid conservatism of this theocratic cancer, we need to start over. Maybe it has to get worse before it can get better. But it is certainly too late for fellow-traveling Christianists like Lowry and Krauthammer to start whining now. This is their party. And they asked for every last bit of it.

It's a slo-mo implosion...a frame-by-frame viewing of a black hole at work, sucking at every stitch of matter nearby. Sucking the whole party—moderates tired of grasping fundies, fundies tired of being used by the elites, and the neo-cons caught between the two—down into a failure vortex of their own short-sighted making. Fractious and grasping, crabs in a barrel, tearing at one another until not enough remains to continue. It's war. And they have seen the enemy, and it be them. For all the misdirection on their part, getting people to focus on Clinton vs. Obama, it is their own internal battle that's the real show—that fundamental battle for the very soul of conservatism that makes our side's backbiting look hour-old dishwater tepid.

SPOILER ALERT II!—THE RECKONING: At the end of “A Place In The Sun” Clift's Eastman meets his doom as a direct result of his fecklessness. With so many GOP stalwarts so disgusted by this intra-party rift that many are talking about sitting out the election or even voting for a Dem to spite the ascendant fundie wing, we may be witnessing a similar self-immolation.

Yes...with movies you usually eat popcorn, and I know we all want to nosh away while watching this “roosting chicken” scenario play out, but “A Place In The Sun” wasn't really a popcorn movie. It was melodrama—high melodrama in fact. Something of a morality play. To mull over and maybe learn from.

The rank injection of fundamentalist religion into American politics is fucking the entirety of the political system up—left and right. Let's see if we can learn from the right's present debacle with this. The movie was based on Theodore Dreiser's 1925 book “An American Tragedy”—a much rougher titling than the more lyrical “A Place In The Sun”, but in the end, maybe that much more apt when you think of the situation.

Especially if you're a Republican.

There's more...

Krauthammer-ed!

You Just Got Knocked The Fuck Out!!! Maaaaaaan!!!

As I've got friends and family toiling in the pharmaceutical industry, I'm tempted sometimes to do with them what folks often do with me when we become close and they find out that I work in the publishing and entertainment industries—pitch 'em “product” ideas.

I hope that my brainstorm will be something akin to the next “Viagra”, or “Lunesta”, or “Enablex” or something else that sounds like a Marvel Avengers villain's name, but reels in hundreds of millions of dollars from jittery, hypochondriacs everywhere.

I've mulled pitching cures for tinglefoot, and underarm deodorant-clumping. But I think I have the one panacea that could rake in countless millions of pharma-dollars, enabling me to finally be able to afford that immortal, Insta-fuckwit-endorsed robot body to download my consciousness into.

I would call that miracle dream drug...Preemalex.

It would be a combination barbiturate/muscle relaxant that would act on the brain—specifically the triumphaloid gland and the still-mysterious nyah-nyahicus blusterex section of the brain, while also anesthetizing wildly hyperactive jaw muscles.

I've even got a target market demographic that desperately needs the drug—Premature victory ejaculating wingnut pundits. The marketing folks could come up with all the scary, “Do you have these symptoms?” copy that a reassuring voice-over artist could sonorously read off.

“Preemalex... (Sound of a rooster crowing) ...for when the cock crows too soon.”

Karl Rove's a sufferer. (“I have THE MATH!”—Nov. 3, 2006) So's his Libertarian, non-conservative, rope-belted tenure-baby pal Instapundit (“Okay, I'm officially declaring the Plame scandal bogus”—December 3, 2003), shillhistorian Victor Davis Hanson (“We're winning the war!”—Spring, 2005), and skipping over about 7,594 examples since that time, we now have the sniffy, condescending Charles Krauthammer.

Charlie's a tough one to take. He's NOT dumb. And when the subject is a non-political one, I have occasionally found him to be thoughtful, enjoyable...and even, witty. But let the conversation turn to politics and it's “Moe! Larry! The cheese!”, and he's off his rocker, swinging madly at everyone in the arena. And to and to cap it all off, when arguing for wingnut causes, he tends to veer towards the realm of angry, disingenuous jerk.

If you didn't know, Krauthammer is disabled—paralyzed due to a diving accident during his undergraduate years in college. One might assume that dealing with that issue, and as a reknowned member of the medical community, (his work as a psychiatrist is heavily cited in many medical journals) he could conceivably be a receptive ear, and perhaps a strong voice for the myriad potential benefits of stem cell research. More specifically, government funding for embryonic stem cell research—stem cells that are incinerated anyway as the leavings of in-vitro fertilizations of couples that have successfully brought a child to term, or have given up trying—cryogenically frozen remnants left at medical storage facilities.

One might assume that research using those embryos—in lieu of throwing them out—to aid in the cure of various ailments such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases, or even finding a way to repair nerve damage in the paralyzed would be something that this medical professional would consider beneficial, without the silly rancor and talking points of a mocker of the disabled, like Rush Limbaugh.

But you all know what happens when you assume, right? 'Cause apparently Charles didn't. (Via Daily Kos:)

(KRAUTHAMMER:) A decade ago, Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells. Last week, he (and Japan's Shinya Yamanaka) announced one of the great scientific breakthroughs since the discovery of DNA: an embryo-free way to produce genetically matched stem cells.

(KOS DIARIST DARKSYDE:) Except that one likely way to say ‘embryo free way to produce genetically matched stem cells" in light of current procedures is ’cloned.’ Which plenty of ignorant, mostly conservative politicians also oppose. But this sucker gets worse, much worse. Steel yourselves:

(KRAUTHAMMER:) The embryonic stem cell debate is over. Which allows a bit of reflection on the storm that has raged ever since the August 2001 announcement of President Bush's stem cell policy. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance -- been so thoroughly vindicated.

( DARKSYDE:) And that's the tone for the rest of the article more or less: George Bush is a genius -- one could almost read savior in the editorial -- because his unpopular policy forced those lazy scientists to do without embryonic stem cells. Of course, the real moral objection to Bush’s ban on Federally Funded lines is that the blastocysts used to produced them are slated for destruction anyway. A few could be saved for ESC research. Preventing that in anyway won’t 'save them,' quite the opposite in fact.

So Charlie got all fired up and triumphant, letting his mania for screaming winger talking points like an air raid klaxon with an unconscious Tor Johnson sprawled across the “on” button get the best of him.

“Oh noez! You are the loosrz! LMFAO&ROTFL!”

This otherwise intelligent man blew the whistle and wanted to call the game over after a scoreless drive where his team moved the ball thirteen yards.

What happened next? You guessed it—he got 56 unanswered points thrown up on him before he could say Roman-fucking-Gabriel, via a stern rebuttal in the same paper five days later...

A new way to trick skin cells into acting like embryos changes both everything and nothing at all. Being able to reprogram skin cells into multipurpose stem cells without harming embryos launches an exciting new line of research. It's important to remember, though, that we're at square one, uncertain at this early stage whether souped-up skin cells hold the same promise as their embryonic cousins do.

Far from vindicating the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds from many of those working to develop potentially lifesaving embryonic stem cells, recent papers in the journals Science and Cell described a breakthrough achieved despite political restrictions. In fact, work by both the U.S. and Japanese teams that reprogrammed skin cells depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research.

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

While commendable, these efforts remain preliminary, and none so far has suggested a magic bullet. In the same way, the recent tandem advances in the United States and by Shinya Yamanaka's team in Japan are far from being a Holy Grail, as Charles Krauthammer inaccurately described them. (Ed. note: Original link appears IN online version of the rebuttal!) Though potential landmarks, these studies are only a first step on the long road toward eventual therapies.

Krauthammer's central argument -- that the president's misgivings about embryonic stem cell research inspired innovative alternatives -- is fundamentally flawed, too. Yamanaka was of course working in Japan, and scientists around the world are pursuing the full spectrum of options, in many cases faster than researchers in the United States.

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

Unfortunately, under the policy President Bush outlined on Aug. 9, 2001, at most 21 stem cell lines derived from embryos before that date are eligible for federal funding. American innovation in the field thus faces inherent limitations. Even more significant, the stigma resulting from the policy surely has discouraged some talented young Americans from pursuing stem cell research.

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

We hope Congress will override the president's veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Further delays in pursuing the clearly viable option of embryonic stem cells will result in an irretrievable loss of time, especially if the new approach fails to prove itself.

“A stern rebuttal in the same paper five days later”...FROM THE SAME SCIENTIST WHOSE REPORT KRAUTHAMMER CITED AS PROOF OF HIS REVERSE POINT!

Imagine a sneering, unlikable guy swaggering around the locker room and school hallways, haughtily bragging to everyone who'll listen that he'd slept with a really popular girl who everyone knows—reveling in all of the graphic, salacious detail.

“Yeah...nailed her.”

And then picture when said “girl” catches wind of the braggart's his lies, and publicly exposes him with proof that not only had they not slept together, but had never even gone out?

You get what happened to Krauthammer. An embarrassing exhibition of partisanship and hubris grabbing hold of an otherwise intelligent person and sending him careening face-first into a runny, oversized cream pie of “What-the-fuck-were-you-thinking?”

As multitudes watch.

Let me amend that. I said “embarrassing”. That would actually mean that Krauthammer is capable of feeling shame. It's more like we feel embarrassed for him.

He's Monty Python's Black Knight.

Or The Kids In The Hall's hapless “Sid”—the Bruce McCullough character who picks fights daily, howling and spoiling for trouble—but cannot fight to save his fucking life, and routinely, laughably gets his ass kicked, running headlong into clenched fists and knocking himself out.

You laugh at them. You have to.

In the comedy cases, it's because they're so ridiculous. And in Krauthammer's—yes, it's because he's so ridiculous, but also sadly...just to keep from crying.

There's more...

Presidential Presser Poop-plops.

“Holding ha-aaaaaaannnnds...making all kinds of plans...”

A fortnight ago, I took the Bush administration and the Saudi government to task for their cushy, co-dependent relationship, and how that “relationship” has adversely affected what America calls “The War On Terror™”, while also severely damaging what little “moral authority” we had left in pressing for international human rights.

That “relationship”, based on America's crack-ho' addiction to oil (as a resource and as a corporate revenue generator) and the Saudis exploiting said addiction in their position as a main supplier of petro-crack has resulted in a blindered moral relativism on the U.S.'s part. We look the other way on the Saudi's retrograde excesses in return for continued, flutter-lidded, white-eyed suckling at the oil teat.

What set me off? Post September 11th, Bush cynically opted to put no pressure at all on the powers-that-be who run the country where 3/4 of the attack's hijackers hailed from—those same powers-that-be whose oil revenues finance the religio-piate Madrasas (schools) that often serve as anger-to-action incubators for many a frustrated young Muslim man. A need for oil for all those Hummers and Suburbans, and an equal lust for that same oil to reap refining profits from is a sad reality of how we choose to live—and it reflects itself in the choices our government makes. Ugly choices that manifest themselves in moral hypocrisy where we pushed for war with a non-aggressor Muslim country who not a single 9-11 hijacker hailed from. Hundreds of thousands killed, millions displaced, a civil war fomented by our stupidity in Iraq—whose people didn't do a Goddamned thing...and this government couldn't even talk loud to the Saudis about maybe fixing some of the eminently fixable shit they passive-aggressively promote that is a threat to us?

Yes...that bothered me in a big way.

But...you'd like to think that at some point in time...maybe by dint of the simple law of averages, some balance could creep into the mix when it comes to massaging foreign policy. You can borderline understand the blunt-force stupid of raw human nature in the single-minded “all-take/no-give” school of dealing with so-called mortal international enemies. It's not smart—but you can sort of see where it comes from. I have trouble grasping the flip side though—the “all-give/no-take” mindset when it comes to dealing with so-called allies.

The case of the young Saudi woman who was brutally gang-raped and found herself on the sentencing end of 200 lashes for apparently “asking for it” (actually 90 for the “crime”, the extra 110 for talking to the press) via the heinous sin of her daring to be with men other than a relative, is one such example of the “all-give/no-take” imbalance on America's part. There was of course, the typical “Damn those crazy Moo-slims! All of 'em!” spike of crazy in the 48 hours of news coverage it garnered. But again, there was little from our government beyond a glassy-eyed burp of “There, we've spoken on it, let's move on” from our flaxen, Presidential spokes-bot Dana Perino.

The administration let the whole thing slide as if it was slathered with a barrel-ful of low-grade crude.

However, it hit a dry spot yesterday when a reporter brought the story up at Bush's presser...and Bush's handling of it tells you everything you need to know about why we're as fucked as we are presently as a country. Diplomatically, public relations-wise, and as any sort of world arbiter of simple decency.

From the presser (Via First Draft):

HENRY: On another issue of credibility in the Mid East — At the Annapolis Summit you used your influence to get Saudi Arabia to the table but I wonder whether now you will use you influence to do something about the Saudi rape case that has gotten so much international attention? What goes through your mind when you hear about a 19 year old Saudi woman getting gang raped by seven men and basically a Saudi court blames the victim and sentences her to 200 lashes? You spoke to King Abdullah by telephone in the last couple of weeks. Did you press him on this case? If so what did you say and if not, are you giving him a pass?”

Let me jump in here for just one second. The raw transcript of this exchange doesn't give you the full story. You shoud see it. (via Crooks and Liars) When Bush was asked about this, he looked as if someone had slashed him across the gut and pulled some of his intestines out through the wound. He was stunned. Nearly in shock that not only had a reporter dared ask him such a pointed question, but also that he clearly had no clue of how to handle it via talking points. He stammered, stumbled, blinked and blinked and blinked, as if perhaps with mystical snapping shut of his eyes he could make the questioner disappear like some poor unfortunate who displeased Barbara Eden's “Jeannie”. Eventually I guess, whoever was at the console to send him messages via his top-of-the-back transmitter came up with something...but alas, not quiteenough. Back to the bullshit response...

BUSH: My first thoughts were these. What happens if this happened to my daughter? How would I react? And I would have been — I would have been very emotional, of course. I’d have been angry at those who committed the crime, and I would be angry at the state that didn’t support the victim, and our opinions were expressed by Dana Perino from the podium.

HENRY: Did you press King Abdullah about it personally?

BUSH: I talked to King Abdullah about the Middle eastern peace. I don’t remember if that subject came up.

HENRY: If it was that important to you why wouldn’t you at that level bring it directly up to King Abdullah?

BUSH: (Ed. note—Very testily now) There’s plenty of time. He knows our position loud and clear.

And he ran from follow-up on that punji-stick of a question like a scalded dog, howling all the way. This pusilanimous pisspot of a President. For someone who constantly talks of good and evil in the weighty tones of characters from Faust, it doesn't take very much to expose him as little more than a prompter reader when it comes to his depth of real concern with the ideas of fairness and justice. He fell back on a cheap, emotional stunt when challenged and when the reporter basically said, “Thanks for your little scene from 'The Searchers'—now tell us what the fuck you actually did!”, the little coward punted and ran for the sideline. His non-response was a dog-whistle to our international “friends” who don't believe in justice and equality—“We've got your back on that, G!” And it was an unwitting sub-sonic alert to those we are at odds with...

“Sit n' spin, Geneva!”

What do you expect when the world's supposed supa-ultra-mega-hulk-on-steroids-plus-god-and-the-core-of-the-fucking-atom-power not only looks the other way on, but practices torture? When we encourage let our mercenaries and too many of our soldiers kill innocent civilians and then pat 'em on the back? When we allow elections to be toyed with as if by some rogue junta, and routinely see our nation's laws subverted by racism, sexism and all the other “isms” that don't impact the entrenched powers?

There was an old “Pixie and Dixie” cartoon where the cat, Mr. Jinx stood off to the side laughing at a warring, destructive Pixie and Dixie laying waste to each other instead of battling him—the crafty instigator.

Jinxie chuckled his goofy chuckle and said “Hyenh! I love it when they do it to themselves. We're doing it to ourselves. Operating under a bent, ultimately lawless template and reaping the awful whirlwind from it.

In the end...I can't blame the Saudis one fucking bit for taking full advantage of our hypocrisy. That's human nature too.

“If the so-called moral arbiter is fucking up, and is beholden to me for something he needs, and won't press me to get right—why the hell should I tow the line?”

What was that phrase Robert Bork used? “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”? Sheeeee-it—this is a drunken stumble down a steep, icy hill. Maybe they'll have the crack-up at the bottom on YouTube or something. The “Jackass”-ery of civilization as we know it.

“Eeeeeee-yooooonh.”

As an added treat, here's the question that torqued off the little pissypants President and sent him scurrying away to look at torn-out Chivas Regal ads and dream away lustily...'cause you know he don't drink no more...

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. I may want to apologize in advance because --

BUSH: Please do.

Q: I can't help but read your body language this morning, Mr. President. You seem somehow dispirited, somewhat dispirited.

BUSH: I think you need to apologize for advance -- (laughter.) This is like -- all of a sudden, it's like Psychology 101, you know? (Laughter.)

Q: A question related to that, sir, is, twice now, on Iran and Iraq, the facts have failed you on things that you've been outspoken on telling the American people. Senator Harry Reid is saying on the war spending issue that "the President is not leveling with the American people."

BUSH: On the war spending issue?

Q: Yes. Are you, in fact, troubled by --

BUSH: Why don't you clarify that for me?

Q: Well, are you --

BUSH: What aspect of it? That I don't think we ought to fund the troops?

Q: No, sir.

BUSH: I think we need to fund the troops. I submitted a supplemental last February. Anyway --

Q: My question, sir, is, are you feeling troubled about your standing here yesterday, about perhaps facing a credibility gap with the American people?

BUSH: No, I'm feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life, and have made the decision to come before you so I can explain the NIE. And I have said Iran is dangerous, and the NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world. Quite the contrary. I'm using this NIE as an opportunity to continue to rally our colleagues and allies.

Q: Do you think it --

BUSH: It makes it -- the NIE makes it clear that the strategy we have used in the past is effective.
[snip]
And so, kind of Psychology 101 ain't working. It's just not working. I understand the issues, I clearly see the problems, and I'm going to use the NIE to continue to rally the international community for the sake of peace. Thank you very much.

Now when I finally saw this in its entirety, (hopefully the C-SPAN feed works) this segment played out like a sitcom segment with a fade to blackout. The questioner asks a testy, anxious Bush a question about his obvious discomfort at the podium with what seemed to be a bad day's going. He cited negative body language and tone.

Bush of course denied it—and then proceeded (you need to see the moment to truly get it) to grump, and snipe, then slouch and finger-shake, and finally yell and cut off any further questions with an angry stomp out.

A commenter in a previous thread said of the presser “GWB had an emperor sans clothing moment.”

It was that and more.

It was a “Law & Order three-minutes-of” moment too. That moment in the courtroom or interrogation room where the guilty defendant invariably snaps and exposes himself as exactly what Jack McCoy or Detective Goren just set him up as being.

But most embarrassingly, it was also a “Sexual Chocolate” moment.

Don't know what I mean by “Sexual Chocolate”? Come To America with me and all will be clear. And make sure to watch to the end, kids.



SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!

There's more...

WORLD PREMIERE—“Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To YouTube...”

Yes, It's Another New Group News Blog Video Production!

This one goes out in...“ahem!”, honor of President Bush, and his dots-her-eyes-with-hearts-in-her-memos-to-him wannabe girlfriend, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Primarily for his from jumpstreet fuck-uppery of the war in Iraq, and for her glaring incompetence on the diplomatic front there—which of course led to a mutiny of State Department Foreign Officers who vivisectioned her lack of leadership, and her boyfriend's lack of sense in general in a skin-flaying meeting at the Department's headquarters on Wednesday night.

The imagery of this mess has been described in many ways. I've called it a bed-shit, others dub it a clusterfuck, but for some reason, the image that comes most readily to mind is simply that of a vehicle careening down a mountain—oil pan scraping and spitting out sparks, with doors and all manner of bolted-on parts flying off madly.

Oh yes...and the wheels coming off the whole Goddamned enterprise as it bounds out of control, of course.

Thus, it is that image I want you to keep in your head as you watch out latest production...

“It's a Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb-Ass War”

“It's undah...the big, dumb Dubya”

There's more...

NEWS FLASH!: Bush Administration Flunkies Cover Their Asses Via News Fakery!

UPDATE!: And Cats Can't Drive For Shit.

This “can't-reach-the-pedals” guy'll do 70 clean laps at Talladega before the Bush admin gives the straight dope on a fuck-up. He'll hit the pits sweet as honey, too.

You don't have to look very hard for where it all started to go all lumpy-headed, drag-ass wrong for the Bush adminsitration. Oh, they'd been screwing the pooch like a pheromone-torqued Mickey Kaus at a petting zoo for years and years, but for about five years or so, they'd gotten away with it brazenly, with very few questions asked, and no challenges when exposed. That is, until an uncanny six month span between March and August of 2005 when three sirens of political bed-shittery came a' calling on BushCo LLC. Our mighty compatriot Driftglass (one of the best things outta Chi-Town since Curtis Mayfield), dubbed them exquisitely and perfectly as “The Three Fates”—Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, and I thank him for saving the post where I ran down where the wheels came off and the axles bounced and bit into hard macadam for Bush and his crew of sycophantic salad-tossers. The sweet ride was over. Now there'd be hard, actual driving from here on out. Drifty poetically called' em “The Three Fates”...but I name-checked 'em as Schiavo, Sheehan and Katrina.

"People make much of the "Rovian" strategy of turning your opponent's strength into a weakness, and one of Bush's alleged strengths (as his people like to put out there) is his surrounding himself with supposedly strong women, thus creating a "nanny shield" of protection around himself. From "Quaker Oats Guy" Mama, to dewy-eyed Condi, to Fraü Blucher Hughes, the Bush machine loves to trumpet his confidence in/dependence on these retrograde wet nurses.

This, they declare is one of his strengths.

So...God looks down, and in his infinite wisdom, sense of irony, and penchant for kicking the lead's *ss in the third act, says, "Wouldn't it be funny (apologies to the late Allen Funt) if I were to take this idiot's purported 'strength' and make it the thing which ultimately busts him in his grille? Yeah...that would be funny!"

And with a twitch of a celestial pinky, there appeared three female apparitions...

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

Oh, no, it wasn't the dems. It was "Beauty" killed the Beast.

Funnier still, is how each of those fists-to-the-face Bush has taken from the three sisters of the whup-*ss convent came while the ignorant little sh*t was on vacation in Crawford.

Schiavo--he flies back to scawl a shaky, DT'ed "X" on legislation to suck up to the christofascists and winds up getting himself crucified.

Sheehan--he hides out in a hay-bale fort reading old copies of "Grit" to get his news while occasionally peering out and wincing at her still being outside there.

Katrina--hung out at Crawford an extra coupla days falling off Segways, leaving bits of skin on bike-trail rocks and clearing brush--copy and pasted from a computer at Pixar while a Great American city drowned.

It was from there that Rove's legendary ‘Math” got all fucked up with the subtrahends, polynomials, postulates and integers colliding, and fusing and fracturing all over the blackboard. The polls got Herve Villechaize on a drunken-crawl low, and have stayed there. A Democratic, but still brush-clearing whipped Congressional majority would come into power (whatever that means)...and the administration's ability to just flat-out hide shit that it didn't want found out faded like Laura's smile once the Vicodin wears off. Katrina's revelation as her flood waters receded, of administration mendacity about Bush's level of engagement, Condi's misplaced priorities (“Ahhhh, The Name Is Bootsy, Baby!”), and most damningly, the lies of FEMA and their cronyism truly knifed the gut of the Bush leadership mystique—exposing his whole crew as little more than half-assed hacks better at covering their asses than at covering logistical bases.

So, here we are...some two years after “Heckuva Job, Brownie!”, and botched, jackleg relief efforts post a national disaster and the same organization—FEMA (where Fallacy Ensnared Motherfuckers Abound)—re-cacas the 'ol guest bed again. “Sigh!”—with a piece of P.R. stupidity that makes the “New Coke” rollout look like the iPod's debut. In the wake of the California wildfires, FEMA botched the scheduling of a progress report press conference so badly that rather than hold off and cancel the thing until it could be done properly...

Goddamn...you'd think that maybe they wouldn't be quite this stupid, but you know what they did...

They FAKED the press conference. By filling the room with hustled-in FEMA staffers coached to play-act the role of reporters.

!

Via Norwegianity, quarter of a page down:

The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago —arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.

The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from an agency employee.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.

"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California," Perino said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they — I'm sure — will not do it again."

She said the agency was just trying to provide information to the public, through the press, because there were so many questions.

"I don't think that there was any mal-intent," Perino said "It was just a bad way to handle it, and they know that."

Now...there's really no need for any level of upset about this story. None whatsoever. You see, when I heard about it, I actually laughed. Maybe my Snark-o-meter ™ (Pat. Pending) was tuned past 8.5 or something, but the first thing that went through my mind was, “Hmmm...a troubled Bush administration department is reduced to trotting out a bevy of “Potemkin” reporters to get across their spin in a time of crisis?”

What the fuck difference is there between that and their trotting out of Hume, and Wallace, and Kurtz, and Matthews and the rest of the scat-tossing Bonobos when the kitchen gets a little hot?

How was Tony Snow's straddling the news/admin flack line in any way unique?

Well...I suppose the difference lay in the blow-dried A-Team's getting a bit more than the flunkie “scale” the FEMA understudies got.

I just can't help but laugh when I think of when the press themselves saw that gaggle and the Blackberries suddenly started heating up on every state and letter-named avenue and street in D.C. with that querying refrain from “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” running across their text screens—minus the rogue-ish charm of course:

“Who are those guys?”

Bitch of it all is that Bush's people got caught doing it—never mind what the glassy-eyed spokes-bot Perino mewled about “the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.” These are the people who Rove sat down with—every government agency—and gave them the rundown on how to handle X, Y, and Z in media relations and in covering the president's waggin'-in-the-breeze ass. Post-Katrina, they are not only the gang that cannot shoot straight, but have become the gang that will most likely shoot its own scrotum off unholstering the weapon. This is Bush presidency—Term II policy writ large.

F.D.T.R.T.C.Y.A.

Fuck Doing The Right Thing. Cover Your Ass.

But you knew that already, didn't you? We're all hep-cats down with the scoop and all that. The real lesson here is in the ready ammunition it is against the next wingnut you come across—and there's always one, who runs the “Gimme one—just one example of where this adminstration set out to deceive the American people outright! Give me ONE!” bullshit on you.

Swat this big, sloppy meatball pitch right back into their unprotected gut. And while you're at it, point out this other damning bit of logic to 'em.

If they'll go to the extraordinary length of faking a press conference to avoid looking bad while disseminating what was ostensibly the truth, shouldn't it make you wonder to what levels they'll go to—and have gone through in the past—to cover for what may NOT be the truth?

Oh, my.

It's this kind of relatively minor-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things act that is the scraggly thread that when tugged at, causes the whole Goddamned cheap suit to fall apart when they argue against the facts.

The end lesson? No, it's not the ineptitude and cravenness of FEMA, It's the laying bare—unmistakably—of how this administration really works...and works hard...at deceiving the public.

Lie little, lie big.

There's more...

X-Wing Starfighter Explodes

Baby Go Boom

Simply too awesome not to post up.

TechRepublic

Back in February, I took a lot of crap from Star Wars fans when I questioned the usefulness of X-wing fighters’ x-wings. Well, if the travails of the Polecat Aerospace club–and the video of their grand scale x-wing flight experiment–are any reliable indication, my lack of confidence has been vindicated. In the real world, those wings sheer right off. (Found via SciFi Scanner.)

What you see here is perhaps the greatest model rocket project ever undertaken in the name of fanboy pseudoscience. (Found via SFSignal.) Polecat Aerospace built a 21-foot reproduction (about one-half scale) of an X-wing and designed it to fly–rocket style–with the aid of four M-class solid rocket engines. It even had radio-controlled pivot wings and dome-spinning R2-D2.

They probably should have tried an A-wing starfighter instead. At least it looks like it incorporates some form of blended-wing lifting body.

Build notes. (You know you want to.)

h/t Boing Boing.

There's more...

I can haz commission?

Them Damn Misplaced Decimal Points

The Chinese are saving the U.S. from our budget mess.

One county at a time.

WNBC

Chinese Intern Finds $282M Budget Error In Nassau County

MINEOLA, N.Y. -- An official from China who came to Long Island to learn about local government has discovered a $282.6 million error in a Nassau County budget document.

Ellie Su, 27, a supervisor in the government procurement division for Dongguan, in southern China, noticed that a debt service document entry read $31.4 million instead of $314 million.

After her discovery, she replied: "Still, I was surprised at how few errors I saw in such a big budget book."

Perhaps when she's done with Nassau County, China will considering loaning her expertise to the Bush Administration?

Or at least Congress.

There's more...

The “F” Stands For... What?

Click for high def

How the Reality-Based World Actually Works
(e.g.: I Know and You're Stupid)

As brilliant and twisted Monkey Fluids (often NSFW in a