Recently in Mighty Wurlitzer Category
What is even more embarrassing, this incredibly stupid woman comes from Minnesota.
Coffee klatch? Meeting ground? Christ on horseback, she is a fucking dumb-ass. She makes Dana Carvey's Church Lady look absolutely progressive."Some suggestions are that perhaps we would see an enhancement of wildlife expansion because of the warmth of the pipeline," she said during her Wednesday appearance on WCCO-Radio's "Jack Rice Show."
Bachmann noted a caribou population increase, from 2,700 to 30,000, since the Trans Alaska Pipeline System from Prudhoe Bay was built in 1977.
The pipeline has now become a meeting ground and "coffee klatch" for the caribou, she said.
Was David Brock, a man most of us know to have been instrumental in the defamation, and eventual impeachment of Bill Clinton, held to this level of scorn and ridicule? Obviously not, considering his website, Media Matters, is the go-to site for all things propaganda.
Over the last 6 plus years, since the run up to the invasion of Iraq, a nation obviously not capable of mounting any type of attack against us, we have been demanding that the administration acknowledge it's propaganda agenda. Time and again, on blogs and websites across the progressive spectrum, there has been anger and disgust at the lack of honesty and forthrightness.
Now, finally, Scott McClellan steps forward, announces quite loudly, and convincingly, that the Bush administration used propaganda in the run up to the invasion, and what does he receive? Our derision and scorn.
"Where the hell were you back in 2002? Why the hell did you not resign in protest back then?" Here are some links: CampusProgress, The Register-Guardian, MetaFilter, Oliver Willis, All Spin Zone.
Stop. It. Seriously. Stop it right now.
Scott McClellan has stepped forward, just like David Brock, just like Paul O'Neill, just like Richard Clarke. Now, when those three stepped forward, did it make a difference? Did Paul O"Neill's account of the fiasco that is the Bush administration's handling of the economy make things change? Doh! Of course not. Did David Brock's admission of being instrumental in the propaganda machine -- The Mighty Wurlitzer -- of the conservative right result in the failure of the propaganda machine? Do I need to type Doh! again? And do I really need to point out the lack of serious security despite Richard Clarke's admissions? Yeah, I thought not.
Okay, maybe Scott could have done the honorable thing and bowed out earlier. In the end, it would not have mattered one iota. They simply would have filled his position with another mouth piece. Gee, in fact, they've done it twice since he's left.
So, how about instead of bitching about what he didn't do, because it doesn't really matter, and take comfort in what he has done. Because, unlike David, Paul, and Richard, Scott's book, and it's timing, might actually prevent the invasion of Iran. He has become an ally to our cause. How about we accept him?
Besides, if you really want to bitch about someone doing the right thing and preventing this mess, how about you bitch about this. Because, in the end, having a different man as president would have been the only way to prevent the failure that is the Bush administration.
Me? I am of the thought better late then never. What little that has been quoted from his book appears to reinforce what we have been saying since 2000. That a high level member of the "Texas Family" has, for all intent and purpose, defected and validated our point is a big deal. Just because the timing doesn't meet with our approval doesn't mean we shouldn't still be glad Scott actually came out and agreed with us.
And I have to disagree with Mustang Bobby about this story blowing away in a week. I suspect Scott's book will be hanging around for quite some time. And it may have an impact on the moderate Republicans, a particularly disenfranchised segment of the electorate of late.
There are also some who wonder why Scott didn't say something earlier. You know, resign in protest. But having worked in a dysfunctional company in the past, I guess I can understand why it took so long for him to finally come out and speak his mind. When you are neck deep in the chaos, you lose perspective. No doubt there were all sorts of innuendos and implicit messages being bandied about that cloud rational judgment. Not to mention the various resignations to spend more time with family that reinforced the innuendos and implicit messages.
So, while the rest of the arm chair political pundits weigh in with their opinions, I am going to give Scott the benefit of the doubt with his confession.
Now, if you will all excuse me, I am going to get out of my arm chair and hit the shower. I've got to go to work.
Already the Mighty Wurlitzer's screeching harpies are lining up for blood.
Only problem with that:Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to Bush, said advisers to the president should speak up when they have policy concerns.
"Scott never did that on any of these issues as best I can remember or as best as I know from any of my White House colleagues," said Townsend, now a CNN contributor. "For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional."
Obviously, Scott didn't coordinate this announcement with the White House; it's not Friday. But more to the point, how can they denounce Scott's job performance when the president himself proclaimed a job done well? Yeah, I know, they will anyway.A former spokesman for Bush when he was governor of Texas, McClellan was named White House press secretary in 2003, replacing Ari Fleischer. McClellan had previously been a deputy press secretary and was the traveling spokesman for the Bush campaign during the 2000 election.
He announced he was resigning in April 2006 at a news conference with Bush.
"One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary," Bush said at that conference. "And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, job well done."
Damn, just when I thought I'd gotten away, they pull me back in.
Update: Here are two more links; C&L and Politico.com
New York TimesYou mean they are not unbiased analysts with integrity and honor? <snark>Well, knock me over with a feather.</snark>To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
It is a long, and damaging article detailing propaganda at its worst.
Bark Bark Woof Woof
In other words, the Republicans, who can't run on their record or rely on the sharp memory of their candidate (Shia? Sunni? Iran? Al-qaeda?) or his plans for revitalizing the economy (ready for more cake?), will do precisely what they're best at: attack their opponent and try to scare the crap out of the electorate without offering anything more than platitudes, nostrums, and the firm assertion that John McCain is most assuredly not George W. Bush; he just plans to do the exact same things he did but without the fake Texas drawl.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the Republicans will do exactly what Mr. Kristol predicts; that's a given, since it's worked so well the last couple of times. But Mr. Kristol's record for predicting the future is also well-known. He's one of the bunch that said that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq, that the war would last a couple of weeks or months, that it would pay for itself with the oil revenues that we'd get, and that our influence and model of democracy would turn Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia into the Iowas of the Middle East with freedom and McDonald's springing up on every street corner from Riyad to Damascus. With that kind of record, it really makes you wonder why anyone gives serious attention to anything he says other than to hold it up for mockery and derision.
The problem with using the old approach was it took for granted the independent and [cough] Reagan Democrats [cough]. Back then, there really was no track record for the rabid right wing Republicans. They had managed a good propaganda campaign that imposed a label of incompetence on the Democrats that stuck because there really was no counter argument at the time.
They do not have that option today. With BushCo™ having established the true meaning of incompetence, corruption, and bad government, playing to the base will not keep the independents and [cough] Reagan Democrats [cough] in the Republican camp.
I suspect the rabid right wing minority are replaying the glory days in their heads. But today's electorate map just does not include for them a solid majority of independents and [cough] Reagan Democrats [cough]. That close to 80% of the nation thinks we are heading in the wrong direction ought wake them up to the fact they've lost the swing votes.
In fact, I would be careful if I was a Republican strategist. There is the distinct possibility we will be talking about either Clinton or Obama Republicans.
TVNewserYou know, I am trying like hell to work up some sympathy for ol' Tucker. But, try as I might, it is bone dry in that particular department today.
Insiders tell TVNewser Tucker Carlson's 6pmET show Tucker is getting the axe, but Carlson stays on as a political contributor to all MSNBC shows at least through the 2008 election. The official announcement, expected tomorrow, will include details about who will replace Tucker at 6pmET as well as other political programming additions. Sources say the network is going to beef up its schedule with more NBC News talent.
Seriously, that boy got his chops handed to him by John Stewart and he never recovered. He was never a good newsman. The fact he tried to nail John as not asking hard hitting questions on The Daily Show was the clincher. This cancellation is a foot note to a lack luster career.
He really was nothing more than a tag-a-long of the Mighty Wurlitzer. He collected the crumbs from the big boys, attempting to mimic their blow hard bellows to only produce an effeminate lisp.
Oh, and that segment with John Stewart is still great to watch, even if it is close to 4 years old.
International Harold TribuneWASHINGTON: As Senator Barack Obama prepared to give a major speech on Iraq one morning a few weeks ago, a flashing-red siren alert went up on the Drudge Report Web site. It read, "Queen of the Quarter: Hillary Crushes Obama in Surprise Fund-Raising Surge," and, "$27 Million, Sources Tell Drudge Report."
Within minutes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's fund-raising success was injected via Drudge into the day's political news on the Internet and cable television. It did not halt coverage of Obama's speech or his criticism of her vote to authorize the war in 2002, but along the front lines of the campaign - the hourly, intensely fought effort to capture the news cycle or deny ownership of it to the other side - it was a telling assault.
Clinton's aides declined to discuss how the Drudge Report got access to her latest fund-raising figures nearly 20 minutes before the official announcement went to supporters. But it was a prime example of a development that has surprised much of the political world: Clinton is learning to play nice with the Drudge Report and the powerful, elusive and conservative-leaning man behind it.
That man, Matt Drudge, came to national prominence a decade ago as a nemesis of the Clintons who used the Web to peddle, gleefully, the latest news and rumor generated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
That people in Clinton's campaign orbit would tip off the Drudge Report to its fund-raising numbers is in part a reflection of her pragmatic approach to dealing with potential enemies like Newt Gingrich or Rupert Murdoch.
Sorry, Hillary. Sleeping with the enemy just lost you my support. The Mighty Wurlitzer has been the major cause of our political woes in this country. Willing to supplant true democracy with corporate fascism, it has manage to destroy in a few short years what Russia failed to due in over a half a century.
You have done nothing this election but desperately sink lower and lower into the very pond scum you had so successfully stayed above during the eight years of your husband's presidency. Indeed, your desperation set in shortly after your early losses to Obama. Maybe, just maybe, in the end it is Obama's willingness to stay out of the once wholly owned Republican Right Wing Noise Machine that has won over the electorate of this country.
People are tired of the same old partisan politics that have been a standard since your husband's presidency. They are looking for a change. And Obama appears to be embracing that change. It is not so much he will coddle up to the remnants of the Republican party and it's wheezing, aged Wurlitzer, as it is he will avoid the political gamesmanship so long a staple of Washington partisanship, something this article suggests you fail to grasp.
That being said, should a small miracle happen, and you still come out the Democratic nominee, you will have my support. I still see you qualified for the presidency above any Republican or Independent currently in the running. Unless, of course, Gore decides to run as an Independent. Then it is "See Ya!"
Calling Hillary a whore is in keeping with the misogynistic chorus that produced this disgusting piece of political agitprop.So, did David Shuster deserve to be suspended? Hell Yes!
New York Times
"No, your computer isn't misfiring."That's how The Wall Street Journal is introducing Environmental Capital -- its first blog on the environment (and business), which actually is an outgrowth of, and absorbs, its existing Energy Roundup blog.
Oh sure, like Fox News is fair and balanced this blog will be about conservation and the environment.
I ain't holding my breath for any truthiness to come out of that blog.However, should this particular "meme" develop legs, then no doubt, it's a campaign. So, let's sit tight, and just wait and see if these idiots start screeching uncontrollably.
Oh, wait, They screech uncontrollably on a daily basis. My bad.
Anyway, I think Richard is working towards the right point. But it's not so much about who's afraid of John Edwards as much as why are they afraid of John Edwards. Just like Howard Dean seemed to worry the Republicans (especially Rove) back in 2004 (as we now see why with the 2006 election) there seems to be a serious strain among the Mighty Wurlitzer mouth pieces to blow bad steam about John Edwards.
I can't help but suspect the Republican planners are well aware of their party's decline. More importantly, I think they know they are no longer a representative cross section of the American electorate. With more and more populous ideas taking root, without the stigma of "dirty fucking hippies," they are desperate, and will go to any length in stirring up controversies to distract people from this truth.
Somehow, thought, I think this whole John Edwards whisper campaign is going to blow up in their face. For one thing, I find Elizabeth Edwards to be much more scrappy, and feisty, then Hillary ever was back during the Blue Dress affair, and she will not take any of this in a cool, calculating manner. She's going to lash out, with anger, with passion, and without regard to the sensibilities of the Beltway bums. Now, the Beltway bums may go all a twitter, condemning and criticizing her, but the majority of Americans will look up to her, and see what a strong woman she is, and how she is standing by her man.
And let's hope they wing nuts failed to learn from the past. Because when they were going all out to smear and besmirch a sitting president, his approval ratings went through the roof. So, I figure, if they try to do the same thing, the results will be the same.
memeorandum link
Oh, and this cracked my shit up!
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