Democratic Michigan primary results: CNN with 97% of the precincts reporting -- Clinton 55%, Uncommitted 40%, Kucinich 4%, Dodd 1%, Gravel 0%. Gender breakout of Dem voters -- 57% female, 43% male. GOP results at the CNN link. Liveblogging the Democratic debate, see Kevin Drum. Video clips and commentary at Taylor Marsh.
Steve Benen summed up the hatred of McCain by conservative bloggers and Repub activists. McCain said, “I believe my party has gone astray…. I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy.” Hmm, how many Dem voters foolish enough to vote for K Street McCain? Too many!
Religious Right alert! Pulitzer prize-winning Chris Hodges warns about H. Res. 888, which "seeks to rewrite American history, turning the founding fathers into Christian fundamentalists." The full text of the bill contains 7 references to "Christian" or "Christianity," 22 to the "Bible," and 4 Biblical verses. Ahem! As Blue Girl reminded, "Lest you all forget, the war isn't on Christmas... ...The war is on Science..."
Back in the Senate, former presidential candidate and a real Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) returns to "play a key role in [Democratic] plans to make the economy a dominant issue this year." Via Roll Call.
Joint Chiefs chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, said he'd like to see Gitmo shut down "because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been 'pretty damaging' to the image of the United States." Ya think?! (h/t Nicole)
Lawmakers are mad as hell over the DOJ's "[mis]handling of rape and sexual assault cases involving American women in Iraq." Dropping the ball there, AG Mukasey? Oh, yeah.
On the media front, Editor&Publisher editor Greg Mitchell covered Bill Kristol vs. the NYTimes op-ed page. Of course, Kristol is wrong. Again and again... about as often as Andrew Sullivan suffers from Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
Since we started awarding the prize late in 2007, we added two deserving recipients who are standard bearers from the past week to our Top 10 countdown of exemplary honorees. Who is No. 1 in all of Wingnuttia? We think you will applaud but let's start with...
No. 10: I see nutheeng! -- One of two recipients from the Heritage Foundation, Nina Owcharenko can face the problem of uninsured children, and without batting an eyelash, obfuscate the situation. Nina trotted out the fallacy that the government program to cover uninsured children is expanding in order to -- gasp with us in horror -- drive children from private insurance! Oh, what an affront to the profits of the insurance industry! "The truth is various states have been pushing for an expansion of SCHIP precisely because, faced with spiraling increases in health insurance premiums, more and more employers are electing to drop dependent coverage and more and more middle class parents, confronted with the same price spiral, are unable to pay for private insurance." The parental nightmare: choose between paying for their children's health coverage or the mortgage. But, pish posh, neighs Nina. She canters on, her award teetering on her ideological rump, leaving a trail of road apples for the kiddies.
No. 9: The poor couldn't possibly be really poor -- That's what an elite fellow of the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, explained, wagging his finger at us little people. When "one in eight" Americans lack "enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need," caught in a daily "struggle with incredible poverty," Rector pulled out his scented hankie, dabbed his pursed lips before opining, Let them eat dirt. Rector's award for excellence in denying the truth about Americans living in poverty earns him a special booby prize in addition to the award -- a miniature guillotine designed to trim his lengthy aristocratic claws.
No. 8: I'm a useful idiot -- Bill Sammon of the Washington Examiner knows how to lobe a softball to Bush during a WH press briefing so the pResident Evil can chortle, "Now, watch this drive." Sammon's question, ”Mr. President, what did you think of the MoveOn ad?” With that, aWol launched into a tirade against the "Democrat" Party. “I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military....[blah, blah, blah]." For Sammon's efforts, he gets a brass-plated Kool-Aid sippycup inscribed with "D.C. Stenographer" to accompany his award.
No. 7: Wiping the ass of the GOP -- Home to the rants of crotchety white man Lou Dobbs, stenographer Malveaux, and groveling Wolf, the Cowardly News Network proves once again that liberal media is an extinct creature of mythical lore. In homage to their GOP favoritism during the presidential debates, the award comes with a magic CNN eightball that when shaken, always answers, "Carry water for Republicans or God will getcha!" They take the admonition Seriously.
No. 6: Harangutan Glenn Beck -- When Southern California burned, ravaging the homes of Republican-leaning Orange County and San Diego, a place where active duty and retired military also live, the right-wing nutjob of CNN poisoned with venom for the blue state -- and absent of fact-checking to whom he would spew his obscenities -- delighted in the inferno by announcing that "people who hate America are losing their homes today." A perpetual fountain of animosity toward liberals, environmentalists, Anyone Not A Wingnut™, Beck's bigotry earned him an award wrapped in a brownshirt for outstanding achievement in smearing non-Christians.
[Read on... the countdown continues after the jump!]
No. 5: War on Christmas kerfuffle -- Faux News & Friends hosted a curious holiday segment with the Catholic League's Bill Donohue as guest to kvetch about Huckabee's holiday campaign ad that "displayed an image of a white cross floating in the background behind the Huckster's head." WTF? Didn't the Flared Nostril realize there was a war on Xmas? How could he quibble with a cross, for chrissakes?! His "hypocrisy, partisan bias, and bullying are legion.... Donohue's hyperbolic media whoring and Judas act to progressives, Catholic Democrats, gays, Muslims, Wiccans, and Jews" tickles him pinko. "He excoriates or discounts anyone who disturbs his unbridled wingnuttery" and "Big Media, having given him a bully pulpit, turn a blind eye to his hypocrisy." For his yuletide performance and to complement his award, we bestow a super-size kazoo to play along off-key with the noise machine.
No. 4: O'shilling is me middle name -- NBC's Tim Russert never encountered a fact he couldn't dismiss or distort on behalf of his BFF, the Greedy Old Phonies. Describing Huck's victory in Iowa, he said that "the Republicans [were] embracing someone whose message was populist, and in terms of foreign policy, anti-George W. Bush." Wait a minute. That's not what Huck said: "I love the president. I've been with him on the war. I've been with him on the surge when Mitt Romney wasn't. So it's absurd to say that I'm against the president." Typical of Russert, his Meet The Press dog-and-pony show demonstrates an exercise in disregarding his buddies' misleading statements, allowing propaganda to flourish, and dissing Democrats every chance he can insert an attack. In special recognition, he receives a GOP-monogrammed chamois to polish his award along with the turds he serves up as journalism. Maybe he can use it to buff his brown nose, too.
No. 3: He's a Muslim (wink, wink) but I'm a slut -- He'll criticize others for spreading innuendo but when Chris Matthews does the same thing, he's oblivious to his brazen double standard. As a bona fide Hillary-hater, Tweety makes millions trashing Big Major Dems and he doesn't mind stooping to sexism to do it. He's been dissembling a long, long time. Ah, but he can't seem to cure his complusion 'cause he's in love! Republican he-men, Mr. 9/11, the Codpiece-in-Chief, and "Big Handsome" Fred Thompson make him swoon. We've re-engineered the Wurlitzer prize to accommodate a hidden compartment where Tweety can keep a bottle of smelling salts to use when he's overcome with the vapors. Should we toss in a hand towel for his, um, sweaty palms?
No. 2: Who can top Rudy!? Only Rudy Giuliani, a constant source of wingnuttery, can soar beyond himself like Icarus lifting on the thermal of 9/11 (video). He was for "socialized medicine" before he was against it, but Rudy's never liked facts much. He can out-howl the dogs of war louder than any banshee and he can scare little children and big people alike with terror, terror, terror. Oh, Rudy! "The serial exaggerator can't help himself." But when will he drop out of the race for the WH? His Wurlitzer prize comes rigged with a oscillating white flag. Maybe he will get the hint.
No. 1: Who's the wrongest wingnut of all? -- Taking the top slot, William "The Bloody" Kristol reigns as the King of Crap. For being spectacularly wrong as a pundit, the Gray Lady added him to her "stable of neocon stooges." I kid you not! With Bloody Bill "on board, the Nyuk Nyuk Times can whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop it up with the phoniest stooge of all. The infotainment value that a weekly dose of Bloody Bill can bring to Serious Punditry will surely elevate the laughing stock of the paper in the marketplace of Opinion as it bolts in the opposite direction of the nation's move toward progressive ideas. Who's next to [dis]grace its editorial pages? Ann Coultergeist? N'yaaah-ah-ah!" For such an colossal misstep, the sound of mailbox flaps banging shut on cancelled subscription letters lends a raspberry-induced a cappella to both the Times and Kristol's Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™.
Stay tuned for next Saturday's award to kick off the first honoree of 2008.
This week comes the news that the Gray Lady will add Bill Kristol to its stable of neocon stooges... like David Brooks, who slung a pipe to our skulls with his comparison of Bin Laden to liberal bloggers (video).
Ah, the Nyuk Nyuk Times -- former home to Little Miss Run Amok, who scampered through its halls unabated, stacks of notepads a-flyin', to shamelessly flack erroneous WMD stories. And who can forget fabricator extraordinaire, Jayson Blair? Or the stiletto-wielding tart MoDo: Take that Al Gore! And you, too, John Edwards!
With William The Bloody Kristol on board, the Nyuk Nyuk Times can whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop it up with the phoniest stooge of all. The infotainment value that a weekly dose of Bloody Bill can bring to Serious Punditry will surely elevate the laughing stock of the paper in the marketplace of Opinion as it bolts in the opposite direction of the nation's move toward progressive ideas. Who's next to grace its editorial pages? Ann Coultergeist? N'yaaah-ah-ah!
Hiring Bloody Bill, David Sirota explained, is "an absolute abomination from the standpoint of basic accountability. A pundit being factually wrong on almost everything he hung his hat on is rewarded by the largest newspaper in the world for his track record. If ever there was an example of the world of journalism literally thumbing its nose at basic accountability, this example of Bill Kristol falling up is it."
Perhaps the Pravda on the Hudson wishes to jettison what remaining liberal scent a bloodhound couldn't possibly detect from its newsprint by employing the man who admitted the term, liberal media, "was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
Once so suave, so soothing in tone, a fake thug but well-groomed, the Weekly "Double" Standard editor-in-chief, Beltway gadfly, and Faux News commentator has descended into Bush's inferno with a "bitter, sycophantic belligerence."
Who can blame the snarl repressed beneath his smile? Bloody Bill's been so wrong about so much.
[Read on... more wingnuttery and video after the jump!]
Earlier this year, media expert Eric Alterman ticked off a litany of Kristol errors buried in his wingnut kockeputzi (with emphasis):
...if one looks for a consistent pattern to Kristol's perpetual wrongness, it's not hard to discern. For Kristol is less interested in being correct than in advancing his side's interests. He's not a journalist; he's an apparatchik working undercover as a man of the press.
In 1993, Bloody Bill "made a name for himself by writing a strategy memo in which he altered the course of American politics by convincing Republicans not to compromise with the Clinton Administration healthcare plan but to destroy it." And indeed they did.
Universal health care for America's uninsured took a pie in the face as did Bill and Hill. Oh, a two-fer! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. That's all that matters to Bloody Bill. Forget that he's "not merely wrong but spectacularly so." To Kristol, facts... pffft! Pffft! How inconvenient they are when the game afoot demands win-win-win regardless of whose lives may and will be lost. To note a few Alterman points:
* In the opening moments of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Kristol insisted, "We are now in the final days." He intoned, "If the President lied to the American People...he's finished."
* When the Starr report was issued, causing almost universal revulsion among Americans, Kristol wrote a cover editorial for his magazine that headlined the report Starr's Home Run, portraying its author as Mark McGwire and calling for Clinton's immediate impeachment.
* At the outset of the Iraq War, Kristol called predictors of Shiite-Sunni strife purveyors of "pop sociology," insisting, "Iraq's always been very secular" and that a US invasion would spread "the principles of liberty and justice in the Islamic world."
Bloody Bill on liberal "disloyalty":
"These liberals--better, leftists--hate George W. Bush so much they can barely bring themselves to hope America wins the war to which, in their view, the president has illegitimately committed the nation.... They hate Don Rumsfeld so much they can't bear to see his military strategy vindicated." After the massacre at Haditha, he said, "The anti-American left can barely be bothered to conceal its glee."...
In a stunning flip-flop and without apologies to Democratic critics, "Kristol himself now admits that Rumsfeld's strategy was a disaster."
Kristol's far-flung chazzerai appears decidedly in his defense of convicted felon, Scooter Libby, one of the WH leakers who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Fox News Sunday debate on commuting Libby's sentence via CSPANJUNKIEdotORG.
Let me cut to the most egregious of Bloody Bill's remarks in the above video; there are so many to refute. Kristol prefers a Libby pardon. To delve into his wanton partisanship and warped sense of justice, witness Kristol in 1998:
On the November 22, 1998, edition of This Week, discussing Clinton's impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief William Kristol said that he believed the committee would approve articles of impeachment against Clinton, adding, "I think it's significant and I think they should." Kristol then asserted that the "most striking thing" about the first day of hearings "was the failure of a single Democratic member of that committee to say perjury is a serious matter, lying under oath is a serious matter, and then to, if they want to then argue it shouldn't be impeachable, let them make the argument." He continued:
KRISTOL: Not a single person said, tried to explain to the American people why lying under oath by the president of the United States is not an impeachable offense. I thought it was, I mean, and I say this not as a Republican, but in all honesty, the Democratic Party has had many great moments in its history. I did think November 19th, 1998, was really a day of disgrace for the Democratic Party. They simply refused to condemn perjury and refused to explain why they weren't simply telling the American people perjury's no big deal.
Kristol in 2007:
On the July 3 edition of NBC's Today, however, Kristol defended Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence and asserted that Fitzgerald should never have pursued the charges in the first place:
KRISTOL: Scooter Libby does not deserve to go to jail. I would remind Joe Wilson that Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame's name. Richard Armitage told [syndicated columnist] Robert Novak, we now know, about Valerie Plame's name, so this was an investigation that should never have happened. There was no underlying crime."
As Media Matters for Americanoted, although Libby did not reveal Plame's CIA identity to Novak -- who publicly disclosed it in a July 14, 2003, column -- Fitzgerald alleged that Libby did discuss Plame's CIA employment with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on three occasions prior to the publication of Novak's column.
With one hand Bloody Bill eye-pokes President Clinton for perjury and obstruction in a civil case over a blow job. With the other, he waves off a criminal conviction -- four felony counts that included perjury, obstruction, and false statements -- against Scooter Libby for his involvement in the destruction of national security assets. To compare the two as Kristol did during the Faux News clip is not only dishonest, but wingnuttery at its worst. Yet, you can almost hear Kristol whine, "But Libby is a victim of soicumstance!"
ThinkProgress compiled a list of Kristol's rhetoric that must have soi-tanly pleased the GOP's shill team:
- “It is insane for this country to be obsessing … about a small prisoner abuse scandal,” referring to Abu Ghraib. [5/16/2004]
- “Cheney’s statement” that Ned Lamont’s primary victory helps al Qaeda “is indisputably correct.” [6/13/2006]
- “The voters in Florida, I guess, who elected him” are responsible for former Rep. Mark Foley’s illicit sexual behavior. “Maybe they should have known better.” [10/3/06]
- Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is “sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858″ in appeasing slave owners. [2/10/07]
- Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) saying the war is lost “is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said” about the country being better off if it had maintained racist segregation policies. [4/22/07]
In July, Bloody Bill declared, Why Bush Will Be A Winner! The column provoked David Corn to retort, "Who knew Bill Kristol had such a flair for satire?" Corn enumerated the stooge's blunders:
On Sept. 18, 2002, he declared that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." A day later, he said Saddam Hussein was "past the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. On Feb. 20, 2003, he said of Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction.... Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world." On March 1, 2003 -- 18 days before the invasion of Iraq -- Kristol dismissed the possibility of sectarian conflict afterward. He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." He maintained that the war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. (The running tab is now about half a trillion dollars.) On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "We'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction."
With nearly 70% of Americans opposing the Iraq War and wanting U.S. troops to get out, what audience does the Nyuk Nyuk Times possibly think would read Mr. Kristol's disingenuous tripe?
Is this simply a ploy to attract the eyes of media watchers, fodder for the left blogosphere? Someone's gotta view the ads!
Or is it to tickle the heart of darkness beating in the Wingnutosphere? Yaadadeeee, yaadeda. The Gray Lady must be lonely to sweep the last crumbs of journalistic integrity out the door by inviting Bloody Bill to its table.
What of more current Kristolizations?
In the Dec. 31 edition of the Weekly "Double" Standard, Kristol's stoogerific column announces, "We are now winning the war." Then he continues on to berate his former employer for picking Putin as Time's Person of the Year instead of Gen. David Petraeus. His fallacy: "Our liberal elites are so invested in a narrative of defeat and disaster in Iraq that to acknowledge the prospect of victory would be too head-wrenching and heart-rending. It would mean giving credit to George W. Bush, for one. And it would mean acknowledging American success in a war Time, and the Democratic party, and the liberal elites, had proclaimed lost."
Can we expect more of the same Kristol stoogery from the Nyuk Nyuk Times? Soi-tanly!
For this, the Gray Lady can share this week's award with the PNAC neocon founder, William "The Bloody" Kristol.
When I watched this piece this morning I was taken by how out step the neobloviators on Fox News Sunday seem to have become. Here they sound like a couple of grumpy old men who life has passed by. They shamelessly attack an American for winning the Nobel Prize and belittle the very notion of peace. All while besmirching the efforts of the Nobel committee. Maura Liason and Juan Williams give tepid opposition to the vitriol pumped out by Kristol and Krauthammer.
The tragedy is that Fox News felt it appropriate to feature Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer's pathetic attacks on Al Gore. Kristol and Krauthammer are both neocon dead enders who envision America as the new Roman Empire and who both hate the very idea of world peace. Isn't it about time Americans just stood up to Fox News and said enough already. We have given the neobloviators vision of Republican resource colonialism a chance. It doesn't work. Send both of them to a retirement home where they can harmlessly reminisce about how they would have won if Bush just had the balls to kill a few million more Iraqis.
I for one am tired of all their crap. Aren't you? Do yourselves a favor. Watch something else. Anything else. I know I watched Fox News Sunday for the very last time today. I for one am too young to spend time listening to grumpy old failures complain. Spread the word. Just say NO to Fox News Sunday.
Rackjite1's video should be tonight's funny, but it isn't. Giving vocal promoters of hate like both Kristol and Krauthammer, who are dedicated proponents of death a national soapbox to trash a real American who is actively trying to make the world a better place just isn't funny. I will try to find something funny.
The Democrats had their most interesting debate of the year last night. The New York Times has an excellent critique. If you didn't watch the debate you might want to read the Times article.
It never hurts to find out what the opposition is thinking. This morning Josh Marshall had a one line link to Bill Kristol's Daily Standard comments. Here is Josh's entire post. I hope repeating it verbatim is fair use because I don't know how to summarize Josh.
Kristol tokes up and analyzes the Dem debate.
I disagree.
More on the other side. UPDATE -- TPM has produced a highlight's video. It's embedded after the flip. I think Bill is a couple or three tokes over the line on where the country is right now, but he has a good take on front runner Hillary's weakness.
She's out of sync with her party. That means if she stumbles once, and the magic cloak of inevitability is torn, she could be finished. Obama and Edwards will pour everything they have into winning Iowa. The Iowa Democrats are dovish. What Obama and Edwards will say, over and over--when they go up with serious paid advertising--is that Hillary voted with Bush in October 2002 on Iraq (and has never apologized) and that on September 26, 2007, Hillary voted for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment that (allegedly) lays the predicate for military action against Iran. Hillary could well lose in Iowa. Then Hillary could well lose the nomination.
You can read the entire Daily Standard comment here.
Watch this clip featuring Bill Kristol and Juan Williams. Much of the commentary has focused on Williams, but listen to Kristol.
Bill Kristol says the popularity of YearlyKos proves the entire Democratic party has moved dangerously to the left. The implication is that the Democratic party has been captured by its far left wing.
The DLC was all about making it respectable for Republican controlled corporations to give Democrats money. Of course it has been abandoned. It has outlived its usefulness. Those "far left" wingers are outpacing the GOP by a wide margin in fundraising.
The number one Republican candidate is "none of the above". Except for Ron Paul all of the Republican Candidates are war crazy. Most Republicans want a responsible end to the war. That is the only reason the kooky Ron Paul is doing so well.
Hey, Bill, Juan is right. The Republican fiasco of the last 7 years, and especially the war in Iraq, has awakened the whole damn country. The Democrats have embraced the awakening. The Democrats have moved to the country. The Republicans are stuck in the mud unable to change. Bill, you, the Republican party and your neo-con buddies are tottering on the brink of total irrelevance.
Accountability. We have to be accountable, and we think our politicians should be too. We do not want a replay of the craven perfidy of the last 12 years that nearly sunk the ship of state. The administrators of this blog have decided, as a group, that working to elect real Democrats to office at all levels of government is the best way to achieve the restoration of oversight and accountability.
But please! Don’t make the mistake of thinking of us as battered wives who keep coming back for more, because that would be totally wrong. Parole Officers would be much more fitting. (Full Mission Statement here.)
