Wow!

Remember 3 years of complaining about calling elections based on flawed exit polls! Oops! Never mind.

Hey, maybe he won, but the media could have waited...you know.. until FUCKING ONE PERCENT OF OFFICIAL RETURNS WERE IN. Just to pretend.


...jokes aside, this is really serious. I mean, they may truly have enough information to make this call - I have no idea - but I have *never* seen an election called when zero percent of the returns were in, particularly an election with so many absentee ballots. What the hell?

I'm not in denial here, I'm quite ready to accept the Gubernator, but this is about responsibility in an issue that the media spent years agonizing about.



... but, in any case, buy me some toys to alleviate my depression.

To the Family and Friends of Donald Luskin

(assuming he has any)

Please make sure you have someone at his side, at about 10 am tomorrow morning, just in case...

Love,


Atrios

Clark's Manager Quits

Odd:

WASHINGTON -- Wesley Clark's campaign manager quit Tuesday in a dispute over the direction of the Democratic presidential bid, exposing a rift between the former general's Washington-based advisers and his 3-week-old Arkansas campaign team.

Donnie Fowler told associates he was leaving over widespread concerns that supporters who used the Internet to draft Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign advisers. Fowler also complained that the campaign's message and methods are focused too much on Washington, not key states and the burgeoning power of the Internet, said two associates who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Spokesmen for the campaign declined comment.

Fowler has been at odds with communications adviser Mark Fabiani of California and policy adviser Ron Klain of Washington. All three are veterans of Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, part of a large group of Clinton-Gore activists hired by Clark as he entered the race Sept. 17.

Well, probably not much surprise who I think is right here, but what do I know about campaigns. I think it's pretty easy to make the internet dwellers feel included, a la Dean, without giving up any control.

Florida II

Drudge is starting up the 'air of inevitability.' How *dare* those campaign sources leak early poll results! I mean, my God, they might discourage people from voting like those millions of Panhandle voters and...

oh never mind.

If this election is close (either ballot question), be prepared for a massive shitstorm of truly epic proportions.

Torture Lou

Make the poor boy cry.

Ha Ha Ha Ha

And they mocked voters in Florida...

More of Arnold's Thugs

Digby reports some actual goosesteppers.

Making Shit Up

The NYT continues to do it.

The Clinton Test

Josh Marshall says he follows the Clinton Test when determining the appropriate degree of relevance and outrage for a particular issue.

We should compare Partisan Liberal Journalist Josh Marshall's "Clinton Test" with Partisan Conservative Journalist Chris Caldwell's "Clinton Test:"

CALDWELL: Well, yes, one of my colleagues likes to say, "The Golden Rule is that all rumors about the Clintons are true". But I think ...

KURTZ: That's quite a journalistic standard.

Senior Administration Official

Hey, even Bush says it is. Of course, he also pretends that could be Lots and Lots and Lots of people.

Voting Problems

You can report them here, among other places.

Quote of the Day

From SP in comments:

I'm sure someone will write a good speech that starts, "Four score and seven billion dollars ago..."

so obvious I'm shocked I hadn't heard it before.

Ah, the Good Old Days

No explanation necessary for this.

(via Tapped)

Hillsdale Academy is of course part of Hillsdale College. Remember when...

In November, another right-wing wolf cloaked in family values sheepskin was unzipped to the American public. George Roche III resigned as president of conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan after accusations of a quasi-incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, Lissa.

On the morning of Oct. 17, 42-year-old Lissa and her husband, George Roche IV, visited the 64-year-old Roche at the hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for diabetes. With her husband and father-in-law as witnesses, Lissa claimed that she and the elder Roche had been off-and-on lovers for 19 of the 21 years she and her husband had been married. Lissa returned to her campus house after the confession and armed herself with a .38-caliber handgun. She walked out of her backyard and through the college's arboretum to a stone gazebo, a secluded location where students once went to relax, guzzle a few beers or liaise with members of the opposite sex. There, Lissa ended her life.

We've Found the Source of the WMD

It's the Pentagon. Schweeeeet!

Equal Justice

These soldiers should ask their commander in chief what the penalty for going AWOL is:

Morale among some war-weary GIs in Iraq is so low that a growing number of soldiers - including some now home on R&R - are researching the consequences of going AWOL, according to a leading support group.

The GI Rights Hotline, a national soldiers' support service, has logged a 75 percent increase in calls in the last 12 weeks, with more than 100 of those calls from soldiers, or people on their behalf, asking about the penalties associated with going AWOL - "absent without leave" - according to volunteers and staffers who man the service.

Many of the calls have come from soldiers who are among those now on the first wave of 15-day authorized leaves that began almost two weeks ago. Some hotline callers have indicated they may not return, staffers said.

"What would happen if I just don't go back" to Iraq, one soldier asked a worker at a GI support-line center.

"I'm going to shoot myself in the foot," said another, referring to his solution for getting home.

The Metro

My city is one which has its own version of the international free public-transit oriented Metro newspaper. It's about 8 minutes of news light reading, but the nice thing about it is that it frequently runs things from the international wires that you don't see elsewhere. Usually it's just odd celebrity or 'freak event' news, but today there was a gem:

A phalanx of aides and bodyguards kept a throng of international journalists at bay. Some veteran journalists say it is easier to get access to traveling U.S. presidents.

Staffers told supporters to discard whatever signs they had brought with them. As they entered a security check area, they were told to collect new official signs like "Remarkable Women Join Arnold" and "Democratic Women Love Arnold."

and, as E points out, official signs that appear to be handmade..

Thugs

Arnold supporters attacked Georgy. Well, they'd already gone after nuns, so I guess there should be no surprise here.

Gubernatorial candidate Georgy Russell was pushed, shoved, hit and kicked yesterday by supporters of Arnold Schwarzenegger at a rally in Pleasanton CA. She was repeatedly called a "bitch" and one of the Arnold Supporters wrote on her clothing with a permanent marking pen. The felonious abusers, who claimed to be provoked by remarks from Russell, were near equal numbers of men and women and no one during the incident came to Russell's aid. Schwarzeneggar and his wife Maria Shriver witnessed the attack and neither said or did anything to stop the abuse.

Russell, while disgusted with the behavior, thinks Arnold and his supporters deserve each other. "Some of Arnold's supporters apparently do not hesitate when it comes to using violence to accomplish their goals. It's not surprising that they support and defend a candidate who has manifested poor judgment and aggressive behavior most of his adult life. The behavior exhibited by Arnold's supporters is not simply an aberration, it is an MO that has it's roots at the top; it is reminiscent of the behavior of the thugs that were bussed in by Republicans during the Florida recount to perform much the same role as the bullies of yesterday and while that is no surprise to me I am nonetheless sickened by it all. This bully mentality was exhibited by Arnold in the debate in his rude treatment of Arianna Huffington and that the press offered little to no criticism of his behavior opened the door wide and gave a green light to his supporters to follow suit."

Just a little preview of election '04.

Glad There's Still a Decent Paper...

Actually, there are a few, but here's one from the Strib:

As is clear now, Clinton's policy of containment had worked pretty well.

As is clear now, the American people were sold a bill of goods by a small cadre of PNAC ideologues, bent on attacking Iraq, who latched onto the opportunity provided by Osama bin Laden and his crew of suicidal, airplane-hijacking terrorists. The price? Scores of billions of dollars, hundreds of young American lives, the standing of the United States in the world, plus the credibility of President Bush and his neocon cronies.

Diary of a Stalker

By Donald Luskin.

Outing

Signorile discusses the Plame Game.

If we’re going resurrect the word "outing" and expand its definition, it’s instructive to look at a classic outing to see just how hypocritical much of the press is being in the Plame case. Editors and reporters have been riding the high horse of "journalistic ethics" in defending both Novak’s outing and reporters’ failure to identify administration leaks. But this story has little to do with ethics and everything to with self-preservation and careerism. As has been pointed out by some media critics, the journalists who were given the information on Plame (but chose not to use it) could and should have done a story about how the White House was leaking the name of a CIA agent–all without using the name of the agent or even the leaker. They chose not to for the same reason they won’t now release the name of the leakers, despite the felony of exposing a covert operative. They believe that if they did, they’d lose all access to the White House, that their competition would get a leg up and that their careers would suffer.

Back in 1991, I wrote a cover story for the Advocate about Pete Williams, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in the Bush administration and Pentagon spokesman throughout the Gulf War. Williams was known to be gay by higher-ups in the Pentagon, including then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and, it appeared, President Bush. Meanwhile the Pentagon was booting gays and lesbians out of the military, claiming they were a security risk because they might have access to classified information and could be blackmailed, while the average cook, private or porter had no access to state secrets. But the truth is, Pete Williams certainly did.

Something that is implied but not quite stated clearly enough in this column - back when there was a big media storm about "outing" - outing gay people - the media was much more up in arms than they are about this recent incident.

Cover Up

All those claims about documents being handed over to the Justice Department by 5pm today were bullshit. They're going through Alberto Gonzalez's hands first.

What a load of crap.

Supreme Court Perjurers

An alert reader informs me that Crazy Andy would have supported Clarence Thomas for SC Justice even though he believed Anita Hill. This, of course, means Andy thinks it's just ducky for a Supreme Court Justice to be an acknowledged perjurer.

Local News

I don't cover local news much because I haven't been here long enough to have my finger on the pulse. But, unsurprisingly polls show that in the race between incumbent Mayor Street (black) and challenger Katz (white), the vote will pretty much be according to race.

Of course, for the black voters they're playing evil identity politics by supporting a corrupt and incompetent mayor (not my spin) simply because he's black, and the white voters are making an honest and educated choice.

End Vote By Mail

A campaign has a natural timeline to it, and early voting blows.

Absentee ballot if you're out of the state or unable to get to a polling place, not 'cause you're lazy.


...oh, and on a related note, I would stay up and do the recall coverage tomorrow, but due to the massive amounts of absentee ballots we ain't gonna know the results of this one for awhile...

Walsh Gets a Clue

I rarely have a kind word for Joan Walsh, but she does good here.

Two Sources?

An observant pixie, in comments, notices what I never did. Or, at least, if I did I forgot - too much information. The two different WaPo stories had what was widely interpreted as a minor discrepancy in sourcing. But there is also a discrepancy in timing.

From the first Post story, which was posted up on the web site during the evening on Saturday:

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.

From the second story, posted up on Sunday:

An administration aide told The Post on Saturday that the two White House officials had cold-called at least six Washington journalists and identified Wilson's wife.

This could just be an issue with the timing of web versus print stories - the Saturday story was written for publication in the Sunday print edition. But, we nonetheless can potentially solve the source discrepancy by realizing there are two different sources.

Andy Card with the Lead Pipe?

Digby raises the possibility that the leaker has nothing to do with a CIA-Rove war and is just an appalled insider.

Graham-a Lam-a Ding Dong

Tbogg and Jesse give some good smackdown. As does steve g.

In honor of..

In honor of the the anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, Bush has announced Marriage Protection Week:

Marriage is a sacred institution, and its protection is essential to the continued strength of our society. Marriage Protection Week provides an opportunity to focus our efforts on preserving the sanctity of marriage and on building strong and healthy marriages in America.

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and my Administration is working to support the institution of marriage by helping couples build successful marriages and be good parents.

This is of course no coincidence, as it wasn't a coincidence that Bush took the podium on the Martin Luther King's birthday (the real one, not the holiday) to condemn the University of Michigan's affirmative action program as a quota system - a complete lie..

The media loves to ignore these little coinkydinks. Bush voters understand them. He's just playing to his base...

Still No Map

It's nice to see the Texas Republicans are clueless and inept.

Though not, it seems, as clueless and inept as the one in charge.

Pierce

At Altercation.

Peter Beinart is one of those liberals for whom I wish we still had some use. I mean, he’s smart. He’s prolific. He’s completely sincere, and he’s really terrible on television — which, given the ignorami who seem to prevail in our media/political culture, I consider a great recommendation for both his intellect and his character. But, boy howdy, reading his review of the Krugman collection in yesterday’s TIMES, the man sounds like he’s spent the last 15 years floating amid the moons of Neptune. Consider this passage:

“Guest lists that cross ideological lines can help liberals understand the conservatives they write about. And many Washington conservatives genuinely don’t see the Bush administration as radical: they see it as having ratified a big-spending, culturally liberal status quo.”

Breathtaking, isn’t it? I mean, where does one begin? It isn’t like the conservative agenda is hard to discern; when Grover Norquist says he wants to strangle government in his bathtub, he isn’t speaking metaphorically. He means it. Tom DeLay doesn’t speak in code, and he runs the House of Representatives. The people who’ve our current foreign policy up on the rocks have plotted the course in public — and, occasionally, in Mr. Beinart’s own magazine — for the past 15 years. They didn’t act out their impeachment kabuki in the root cellar, and they didn’t muscle the Florida election in the dark.

And the fact that a lot of them haven’t yet gotten everything they wanted is hardly proof that the administration doesn’t want all the same stuff, too. It’s evidence that some Republicans — and even some Democrats — would rather not see the Republic taken all the way over a cliff. If it pains Mr. Beinart to know that some of his dinner pals want to demolish everything in which he believes, and that they are halfway there already, I am truly sorry, but the Krug is right and he’s wrong on this one. I don’t want these clowns understood. I want them defeated — permanently, the way the Whigs were — and the earth salted so they do not rise again.

Leak!

Plenty of people have said that Bush could end this any time he wants to, and of course he can. He went on the record today as saying he doesn't know who jeapordized national security by outing a covert CIA operative. The journalists who were on the receiving end of this information could of course put the information out there, either on the record or anonymously. I'm hearing rumors that if subpoenad, some wouldn't put up a fight.


But, there's also one more person who could end this - the senior administration official who pointed his finger at two White House officials in the WaPo article 8 days ago.

Look Honey!

Negroes! And they aren't smoking crack!

Holy hell.

I really shouldn't have to point out the obvious - that when a man, a woman, and three children are sitting together at a table we can not infer either that the man and woman are married, that the children are theirs jointly, or that even if they were currently married that they were at the time of the children's births.

(via the Boggster)

In a related note, I keep forgetting to run this gem from Pat Robertson:

"He started off playing a chauffeur in 'Driving Miss Daisy,' and then they elevated him to head of the CIA, and then they elevated him to president and in his last role they made him God. I just wonder, isn't Rush Limbaugh right to question the fact, is he that good an actor or not?"

-- Pat Robertson on his "700 Club" television show, using the example of black actor Morgan Freeman to defend Limbaugh's jab at Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb

Howler

Good one.

Operation Condi

Lord help us all. Actually, this is about putting control of the selling of Iraq back in the White House, and will have little to do with what happens there, though I suppose it's a bit of a spanking for Darth Rumsfeld.

The Chewbacca Defense Continues

Josh Marshall has the details. They're basically just trying to muddy up the whole thing, even though it is mindbogglingly simple. The usual toadies in the press will play along.

Shorter MBFs

Since Wilson disagreed with something Dear Leader said, he is a traitor to our country. Now that's the real scandal!

Rush on Drugs

Ailes has some more.

Onward to Syria?!

I'm not in a position to judge the moral rightness or wrongness of Israel's attack of a camp in Syria, nor are any of the rest of you unless you have access to their intelligence. But, as I've said a few times before, it's really time to put aisde the moral questions of Israel's approach to their security and address the practical ones. I think too often both sides get stuck in the moral issue - defenders of Israel say that it has a right to defend itself by just about any means necessary, and opponents argue, among other things, that Israel's disregard for "collateral damage" should be condemned.

As one who thinks that Israel has legitimate security concerns and has a right to defend itself, though of course we can argue about what "by just about any means necessary" should mean, I've always thought that addressing the overall utility of Sharon's more belligerent approach to his "war on terra" was a better way to argue the issue. The moral questions quickly lead us down a path of "they started it! no they did!," or debates about hereditary ownership claims. But, in the end, from Israel's perspective anyway, in the midst of suicide bombings the primary question is - is it working? Both in the short and long run of course.

It's hard to conclude that the Sharon approach has been effective. While there are those who are loathe to "make peace" with terrorists, in the end that's what you have to do. Or, at least, you have to make peace with potential terrorists.

So, now we go to Syria. Israel may have dealt a well-deserved blow to a bunch of baddies - I really have no idea. But, is escalating a long-(sort of) dormant war a good idea? And, more importantly, are the PNAC lunatics behind this?


It wasn't too many months ago, in the feel-good statue toppling days, that the nutcases in the Bush administration were making very loud noises about Syria and Iran being next. Let's hope they're not crazy enough to start a conflict right now.

The Chewbacca Defense

Damnit!


...and Mark Kleiman neatly takes care of the Sgt. Schulz defense, leaving the defenders with... nothing.

Read Mark's post - particularly any visiting journalists who want a very handy timeline for the events in July.

WTFWJD?

War Liberal informs us that the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has expelled four churches simply for accepting homosexuals as members.


Buy the T-Shirt.

(T-Shirt via the Sideshow)

Shorter Mark Kleiman

It's very odd for a professor of law to be actively advising someone how to cover up a crime.

...Randy Paul has more.

Billmon on Fineman

Billmon takes on Fineman's slick apologia for the administration. He catches something which totally slipped by me, that Fineman is somehow crediting Joe Wilson for the Bush I administration's decision to not go into Baghdad, and claiming that he forced a meek and mild Dick Cheney into obeying this policy.

As Billmon says, "The idea that Joe Wilson, charge’ d’affaires in Baghdad, made the decision not to march on Saddam's capital -- and that Dick Cheney, cabinet secretary, only "supported" that decision -- is one of those crackpot assertions that could only be made in the madhouse that is now the American media."

Dear Media

Please stop pretending you can't tell the difference between consensual and nonconsensual sex acts. Please stop pretending thinking allegations might have some bearing on whether someone should be elected is the same thing as thinking similar allegations (or not similar) justify forceably removing someone from office. Please stop pretending all of the allegations about Arnold are about events from thirty years ago.

And for the males in the media, please, please, for the sake of your wives and daughters if nothing else, please stop conveying the idea that their breasts are public property.


Love,

Atrios.

Or, as Katha Pollitt says:

Instead, reaction as been strangely subdued. Thursday night's "Hardball" was typical. Chris Matthews, who chose the curiously sweet, rather affectionate word "fondling" to describe Mr. Schwarzenegger's behavior, seemed mostly interested in getting Senator Dianne Feinstein to compare the actor's grotesqueries to Mr. Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. The senator was so intent on being statesmanlike that she didn't even point out that Ms. Lewinsky — unlike the the women in The Los Angeles Times article — volunteered herself.

...

Why is it so hard for commentators to come right out and say: here is a man who seems to have a long history of contempt for women, who uses his celebrity to get away with sexual humiliation — why does he belong in public life? Would that sound too square, too P.C., too, um, feminist? From the newsstand crammed with leering lad magazines like Maxim to all-male, all-the-time talk radio to the self-congratulatory misogyny of "The Man Show," aggressive male chauvinism is back in style, and Mr. Schwarzenegger is its standard-bearer.

Shorter Atrios: Hey, Chris Matthews, are your wife's breasts real? They sure feel real!

Bait and Switch

Right before Dr. Strangefeld shows up to visit with some troops, they're told they'll be going home soon. After he leaves, that is no longer operational.

Jobs Picture Worse

Oops

Data Revision Confirms Weak Jobs Picture
Sun Oct 5, 7:33 AM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A warning by the U.S. Labor Department (news - web sites) that it expects to revise down past employment data pours cold water on the view of some economists who believed the jobs market had been improving for some time, analysts said on Friday.

Statisticians at the Labor Department said they expect to revise down U.S. payroll employment by about 145,000 for the March 2003 reference month -- effectively showing even greater weakness in the sluggish labor market than previously thought.

The downward adjustment surprised Wall Street, which had been rife with speculation this week that Labor would adjust the figures up, bringing payrolls more in line with another survey which has shown a recent improvement in the job market.

Vickie Plame

Someone really needs to tell the people at Newsweek that her name is Valerie. Isikoff just called her Vickie. Do they know something we don't?


...Joe Conason just made an important point. Since it appears that the journalists who were the recipients of leaks have been gossiping about it, they've already waived any privelege with respect to preserving the anonymity of their source.


In comments Barbara adds:

I made this point on some comment board somewhere else -- If you feel free to release the name of the source to ANYONE then you haven't sworn a vow to secrecy -- just a vow to protect the leaker as well as others from the consequences of their actions. That takes it out of the realm of abstractly noble conduct (falling on your sword for the 1st amendment) and puts it in the neighborhood of facilitating a possible criminal offense. There's a world of difference. No doubt the real difference is the preexisting political proclivities of the Leakee: Any bets that it's Safire, Will, and a few choice others? They'll never talk. Goddamn bastards.

Howie Goes a Whoring

God, can anyone believe Howie Kurtz's performance on Reliable Sources?

The Media Slumbers

Why oh why is this being totally ignored?

Nina Totenberg: "The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?"

Just a Recap

The significance of David Corn's article is that if Rove and the Roverers weren't responsible for the original blowing of Plame's cover, but instead pushed the information onto reporters afterwards... Then the White House's response to hearing about the leak was not to investigate who the responsible party was, but rather to try and use that information to push their agenda. Bush should ask for Rove's head over this one, whether or not he did anything illegal.

White House vs. CIA

In this article we have White House correspondents telling us that Tenet wants to leave. In this article we have national security correspondents telling us Tenet wants to stay.

Are You Now, or Have You Ever....

been a Democrat?

Increasingly our lovely media seems to think that disqualifies you from expressing an opinion on anything.

Sully the Clinton Hater

Sullivan's obsessive hatred of the Clenis is well-known, but he does, as Sully Watch points out, attempt to pretend that he disapproved of some of the Clinton-stalking scandal machine of the 90s. Sully Watch catches him passing on the bullshit American Spectator stories.

Sullivan isn't a journalist. He isn't even a hack. He's a lying propagandist of the highest order. Any media outlet that continues to publish him is no better than garbage.

I Blame the Muslims!

Gotta love this:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger blames the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near a leading American Muslim advocacy group that he and his wife worried was so close to the U.S. Capitol that "they could blow the place up."

The nine-term Republican lawmaker, in an interview with The Charlotte Observer published Saturday, called the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- whose headquarters are across the street from his Capitol Hill home -- a "fund-raising arm" for terrorist groups and said he reported CAIR to the FBI and CIA.

Ballenger, 76, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he had no problem with Muslims generally, but that he objected to what he believes are ties the group has with terrorists.

"The only difference I have is that building across the street. In my opinion, it should never have been leased" to the group, Ballenger said.

His wife, Donna, told The Associated Press the couple kept a close eye on CAIR since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and worried that the group's activities might jeopardize security on Capitol Hill.

"This gang across the street is questionable," she said Saturday.

Years

Lovely:

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. Army general who heads coalition forces in Iraq says it will be years before the United States is able to "draw down" its forces here, and he warned Americans to brace for more casualties, including a "significant engagement where tens of American soldiers or coalition soldiers" are killed.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez gave a frank assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He said the coalition forces are winning the war here despite the daily drumbeat of news reports that suggest the military is encountering more trouble than its commanders had anticipated.

Alter Breaks Ranks

Finally a journalist speaks up:

Can I tell a quick leak story? The year was 1987 and Oliver North was testifying before a congressional committee investigating the Iran-contra affair. As I sat listening to him in the Senate Caucus Room, I couldn’t believe my ears. North was talking about the 1985 apprehension of Arab terrorists who had tossed an elderly Jewish man in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, over the side of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. The already famous Marine colonel was accusing members of Congress of being untrustworthy because they revealed the military details of that capture. I knew that North was shamelessly accusing other people of leaking something that he, in fact, had leaked himself—not to me, but to other reporters. He was using confidentiality as a weapon. I decided to blow the whistle in NEWSWEEK and identify him as the source. This didn’t exactly make me Mr. Popularity with my colleagues or with North, who threatened to sue. But I would do it all over again.

FAST FORWARD to 2003. The Justice Department has finally opened an investigation into which officials of the Bush administration leaked that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was in the CIA. Bob Novak or any of perhaps five other still anonymous reporters could save everyone a lot of trouble and simply identify the culprit, but as of last week, they hadn’t. Confidentiality is essential to doing our job and almost all of us would go to jail to protect our sources from the reach of the government. To the press, this is second nature; to the public, the code of silence can sometimes seem strange and unsettling. Is there a way out? I think so, though I don’t expect my colleagues to like it.

Indeed.

Passed Over Again

Oh well, maybe next year.

Rove's Sock Puppets

Looks like Tweety's one of them:

In the issue coming out October 6, Newsweek will be reporting that after Bob Novak published a July 14 column containing the leak attributed to "senior adminsitration officials" that identified former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative, NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell was contacted by White House officials who touted the Novak column and encouraged her to pursue the story about Wilson's wife. The newsmagazine also notes that, according to a source close to Wilson, shortly after the leak occurred Bush's senior aide Karl Rove told Hardball host Chris Matthews that Wilson's wife was "fair game." Matthews told Newsweek that he would not discuss any confidential conversation. (He told me the same weeks ago when I made a similar inquiry about this chat with Rove.)

...

...But these new details are significant and undercut the White House line on the leak. At a White House press briefing, Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, repeatedly said that Bush and his White House took no action after the Novak column was published on July 14 because the leak was attributed only to anonymous sources. "Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper?" McClellan remarked.

He was arguing that a serious leak attributed to anonymous sources was still not serious enough to cause the president to ask, what the hell happened? And he made it seem as if the White House just ignored the matter. Not so. Mitchell's remark and even the Rove-friendly account of the Rove-Matthews conversation are evidence the White House tried to further the Plame story--that is, to exploit the leak for political gain. Rather than respond by trying to determine the source of a leak that possibly violated federal law and perhaps undermined national security ( The Washington Post reported that the leak also blew the cover of a CIA front company, "potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure"), White House officials sought to take advantage of it. Spin that, McClellan.

Hack

No, this isn't a post about Mickey Kaus. I haven't actually watched this show before, despite the fact that I regularly see them filming it around my neighborhood. Tonight's show, so far, is a nice bit of anti-Patriot Act propaganda...

Ooops

Robin "Would You Sleep With This Man?" Cook has a wee allegation:

Tony Blair privately admitted that Saddam Hussein could not attack British or United States troops with chemical or biological weapons two weeks before Britain went to war against Iraq, Robin Cook alleges today.

Email

Just a note. I read every email I get but reply to few. So far today I've gotten 84. I'm not complaining, at all, just saying I can't possibly reply to all of them...

Instahackery

Ailes is on it.

The Family Circus

Scooter, Elliot, and Karl all say "not me!"


...and, uh, journalists? If they're full of it, feel free to out them. There's precedent.

From TERRY CARTER: The Robert Novak sourcing flap might get very interesting. Remember back when Oliver North testified before Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal. He told them, under oath, that the Reagan Administration he worked for was concerned about information being leaked out of that august legislative
body. Ollie gave the members some examples, including the leaked information about the 1985 interception of a plane carrying the the Achille Lauro hijackers. And a Newsweek magazine reporter had a problem with Ollie saying that because it had been the stand-up Oliver North himself who leaked it to Newsweek. After some navel gazing, the errant colonel was outed by Newsweek. Let the games begin.
(from a letter to Medianews)

Moving the Goalpost

Well, it looks like little Tommy Friedman has provided his own "shorter Tom Friedman" in the concluding graf of his latest:

That is so wrong. We may not get a better Iraq out of this war, but let's at least make sure we get a better America.

The bulk of the article is about how there should be an increase in the gasoline tax, a proposal with about as much popular support as would one to impose mandatory sterilization of everyone except African-Americans.

Manhunt

Utilizing his massive number of contacts within the Bush administration, the intelligence community, and the FBI, Brian Flemming has managed to put together a timeline of Bush's tireless effort to discover the identity of the person who blew Valerie "Victoria" Plame's* cover.

*How long is it going to take before you fix that, Newsweek? Sheesh...

(via Billmon).

Program Notes

TCM will be showing "Dr. Strangelove," the biopic of Don Rumsfeld, tonight at 8pm ET. I fortunately own my own copy, thanks to a very generous reader who purchased it through my wish list.

WWRD?

In figuring out what is and isn't appropriate in talking about Rush Limbaugh's latest problems, I use the "What Would Rush Do?" standard. And, yes, I think if some evil liberal were in his position, Rush would gleefully link to this little game.

Life with College Republicans

Lovely

A half-hour later, back on the bus driving through a cold rain, the students were both energized and weary. A good bit into the trip, O'Day stood and said it was time to choose a winner of the anti-Howard Dean poster contest.

"All in favor of, 'Dean is a Ween, Don't Bring it to My Bush'?"

No applause.

"Dean Can't Measure Up, Four More Years"?

Mild applause.

"Dean's a Queen, Vote Bush"?

Very mild applause.

"I think the queen's got it," O'Day said, delivering the Tommy Thompson book to the young woman in the back of the bus who created the poster. She would not reveal her name.

...just wanted to add that I am watching Cabaret now, and am just about to get to the key moment where the MC finishes his cabaret song "If They Could See Her Through My Eyes," an amusing little number about a man with a Gorilla for a girlfriend, with the line:

If they could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all

A shocking moment in the film - the instant when the MC has realized which way the winds are blowing and switches from mocking the Nazis to embracing them.

And, there has to be some irony somewhere in the fact that Joel Grey, in the performance of a lifetime, was born Joel Katz but changed his name for obvious reasons...

Fair and Balanced Tower Records

So I stopped in Tower Records earlier to do a bit of browsing and they had a massive display of librul books, anchored around Franken's latest. I didn't see a similar display for the Other Side.

Arnold's Army

A snapshot of his supporters:

The truth is available only on AM talk radio these days, and I think a couple of recruits in Arnold's Army did what they had to do. They spotted protest signs in the crowd and goose-stepped over to take care of business.

Not that they could have known, but the signs were carried by two Catholic nuns in their 60s. According to the nuns, their attackers snatched them away.

The silencing of dissent, coming just a day after Arnold denied reports that he once said he admired Hitler, had the nuns trembling.

"A sign was ripped from my hands," said Jo'Ann DeQuattro, a Holy Name sister whose sign said, "Groping Equals Sexual Harassment."

"I was assaulted physically," said Sister Jo'Ann.

She and Sister France White, of the Holy Child order, were headed for the exits when I saw them. Sister France had taped a sign to herself that said "Grope Free Zone." Sister Jo'Ann had her arm around Sister France to protect her.

Sister France said she gave a "groping" protest sign to a man who held a "Recall Arnold" sign, and watched as he was set upon and had the sign ripped away from him.

"People began fighting with him, and he was escorted out," said Sister France.

As for her own sign getting swiped, Sister France said:

"I believe a woman standing behind me grabbed it. A whole group of people were around us saying, 'Go home' and things like 'Get a life.' "

Sister France still had the "Grope Free Zone" sign taped to her when they decided to leave the rally, so Sister Jo'Ann suggested an exit strategy.

"She was afraid there was going to be more of it, so she said, 'We've gotta get out of here,' and walked behind me, real close behind, so Schwarzenegger followers wouldn't be hitting me as we left."

Sounds like the right kind of supporters for a man who once said:

I think we can't live without authority. There's a certain amount of people meant to be leaders, and to control, and another large amount, 95 percent, are followers. We have to tell (them) what to do and how to keep in order, you know?

and greatly enjoyed his wildly popular Hitler imitations.

Time to pop in my DVD of Cabaret...

If you happen to be rich, and you feel like a night's entertainment,
You can pay for a gay escapade.
If you happen to be rich, and alone and you need a companion,
You can ring ting-a-ling for the maid.
If you happen to be rich and you find you are left by your lover,
Tho you moan and you groan quite a lot,
You can take it on the chin,
call a cab and begin to recover on your fourteen carat yacht.

Tomorrow belongs to him...

Shorter Howard Kurtz

I won't tell you that until just recently my wife was Arnold's press secretary, but I will tell you that it is absolutely horrible that the evil media is treating Republicans so much more harshly for things they've actually done than they ever did Democrats for things they didn't do.

Howard Kurtz Flashback:

KURTZ: Well, joining us now, Joshua Marshall, Washington Editor of The American Prospect and a write for Slate.com, and Chris Caldwell, senior writer for The Weekly Standard.

Josh Marshall, you don't know the extent of damage or vandalism by departing Clinton White House aides, and neither do I. So, in writing in Slate Magazine that the press wildly overplayed this story, it kind of sounds like you're acting as a knee-jerk Clinton defender. J

JOSHUA MARSHALL, WASHINGTON EDITOR, "THE AMERICAN PROSPECT": Not at all. I think when I looked at that, when I looked at that story for the first few days, the charges escalated and escalated, more and more things, destruction of property, trash everywhere. And at a certain point, journalists started asking for some actual proof, some pictures, someone to go on the record and actually say this happened. And over and over again Ari Fleischer said, "Well, it's, yes it's true, but we're going to rise above it" and so forth. And at some point, you say, when are we going to get some proof that this happened.

KALB: Josh, let me try the question this way. Did the Bush people play the media like a yo-yo?

MARSHALL: I definitely think so.

...

KURTZ: But, Chris Caldwell, do you buy the notion that journalists deliberately pumped-up the story, not just of the pardon, which I think everyone would agree, the Mark Rich pardon, very legitimate news story. But, of the $190,000 in gifts; other presidents took gifts, not at this kind of level, and the story about the prank/destruction of federal property, just because they can't stand Bill and Hillary Clinton and because they wanted to portray them as kind of low-class Arkansas hicks?

CALDWELL: Well, you know, these preconceptions that journalists have are not without a basis in fact. One of my colleagues likes to say ...

KURTZ: So, you're saying they are low-class hicks ...

CALDWELL: Well, yes, one of my colleagues likes to say, "The Golden Rule is that all rumors about the Clintons are true". But I think ...

...lambert comments

and Kevin Drum catches Howie doing more whoring. Howie thinks this is much less of a big deal than, say, alleged missing keys on White House computers.

Framing the Story

Dear America Media,

Please stop framing this story as one of Wilson vs. the White House. At this point, this story has absolutely nothing to do wtih Amb. Wilson. The real story is that a senior administration official has accused two top White House officials of telling at least 6 journalists the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That is the story.

I believe that as this is a story about leaks, and therefore you yourselves are intimately involved with this story, you are trying to deflect the spotlight away from yourselves. Stop pretending you don't have a role.

Love,
Atrios.

Shorter Jack Shafer

Since I personally can not yet conclude that anyone broke the law based on my limited knowledge of the facts, it is therefore imperative that we conduct no investigation that might unearth additional facts which could change my opinion.

Much Bloggy Goodness

Is being provided by Roger Ailes (not that one) today.

Just to Be Clear

Hillary Clinton standing by her husband - bad thing. Maria Shriver standing by her husband - good thing.

Corruption, Corruption, Corruption

Not that we didn't know this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 3 � Last month the Iraqi Governing Council questioned why the American occupation authority had issued a $20 million contract to buy new revolvers and Kalashnikov rifles for the Iraqi police when the United States military was confiscating tens of thousands of weapons every month from Saddam Hussein's abandoned arsenals.

On Wednesday the Iraqi council, in a testy exchange with the occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, challenged an American decision to spend $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police officers in Jordan when such training could be done in Iraq for a fraction of the cost. Germany and France have offered to provide such training free.

These decisions are being questioned by Iraqi officials as Congress is also seeking to examine how the American occupation authority and the military are spending billions of dollars here. Iraqi officials and businessmen charge that millions of dollars in contracts are being awarded without competitive bidding, some of them to former cronies of Mr. Hussein's government.

"There is no transparency," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the Governing Council, "and something has to be done about it.

"There is mismanagement right and left, and I think we have to sit with Congress face to face to discuss this. A lot of American money is being wasted, I think. We are victims and the American taxpayers are victims."

(via Steve G.)

Perspective

Reader ji writes in:

I think folks are off-focus on Novak's latest. Here's the money quote: "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told."
Someone told him this. The real story here isn't the end of Novak's career. The story is, who TF would set Novak up for a fall like this? I believe that no DC player, even Rove, would be stupid enough to out a CIA front agency at this point. Someone did this for a reason. But who, and why? I'm stumped. I don't believe Novak's CIA source would out a CIA front agency just to destroy Novak. And this is awul for the White House. Also, I don't believe Novak just invented being told: this is his SOP - some player tells him stuff. But who, and why? This is too f**ing weird. Who told Novak?
I'm going to have to go with the GOP, and someone really, really dumb.

More on Recent Revelations

The Right Christians informs us:

The Washington Post also reports that White House counsel has directed White House employees to collect all records related to Wilson or Plame, the Niger trip and Plame's CIA relationship. Some White House employees complained that this would constitute a heavy burden because of the high volume of contacts they had with Wilson. Vice-President Cheney surely must not be one of those so burdened since he claimed on Meet the Press on Septmeber 14 to have never met Wilson.

Arnold Hearts Ken Lay

Details here and here.

Getler Sort of Gets it

Here:

The good news is that the other reporters didn't bite. The bad news is that none of them wrote or broadcast stories revealing what was going on. This could have been done without disclosing Wilson's wife's name or the source of the information, assuming the reporters had agreed to ground rules of confidentiality set by the source.

The Post, on principle, won't say whether any of its reporters were among those called. But Executive Editor Leonard Downie says The Post has "told readers everything we know" thus far.

The Justice Department will decide whether a crime has been committed by the leakers. But were the reporters who were called accomplices? No, although, again, they could have written or broadcast stories revealing what was happening. If reporters agree to protect the identity of a source they must do so, even if they don't use the information or if it turns out to be wrong. The press is not an arm of government, Downie said, and an agreement with a source is an obligation that is central to surfacing all kinds of wrongdoing. "One can imagine extreme circumstances where you could ask to be released, but if the source refuses you are bound by the agreement. It's a very important ethic of journalism," he said.

But, let me add, I really don't get this sentence. " If reporters agree to protect the identity of a source they must do so, even if they don't use the information or if it turns out to be wrong." This is bullshit. If a source lies to you (which is slightly different than 'turns out to be wrong') you should have an obligation to inform your readers. Period.

Time for Novak to Go

I think the the Post article is a bit too hard him in a way. Once Plame had been outed this was public information, though of course it didn't need to be made obvious. However, on CNN Novak was just making shit up. It's one thing to just make shit up about normal every day stuff, but this was making shit up about something quite important that he was a player in. CNN has to fire this guy, now.

The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."

"There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."

In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.

..oy, he also put it in his October 4 column. And the newspapers ran it. Jeebus Effing Christ.

...CalPundit comments.

But it might. And if the only reason for bringing it up is to let everyone know that Valerie Plame gave money to Al Gore — well, words fail me.

You know, a lot of conservatives are resisting the idea that the Plame affair is for real because it's just so far-fetched. Why would smart people like Karl Rove or Scooter Libby expose a CIA agent over something as trivial as Joe Wilson writing a New York Times op-ed? Especially when doing so didn't really do much to discredit him anyway?

Well, why would anyone feed Robert Novak information about a CIA front company just so that he can make the point on national TV that Valerie Plame is a Democrat? Is it really worth doing that just to add minutely to the Republican meme that this is all a partisan feud rather than a genuine national security matter?

Why indeed. The bottom line, I think, is that these guys just don't care. When it comes to dealing with enemies, they lash out with everything they've got no matter how trivial it is and no matter what collateral damage it might cause. There's just no sense of proportion at all.

I wonder what's going to be next from them?

The Definitive Rush/McNabb Column

Here. No money paragraph, just read the whole thing.

On a related note, Agenda-Bender coins and claims ownership of the term Oxy-Con.

Kay vs. Kay

Oops:

"On the basis of technical analysis on the two (trailers) that we have, it is not going to be possible to reach a determination," Kay told reporters Friday.

It was a different-sounding Kay from the one who confidently showed off the trailers to NBC Nightly News in its July 15 broadcast.

At the time, Kay told NBC: "I've already seen enough to convince me."

The original tip on the trailers was provided by a defector working with Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress and now a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council in Iraq.

Hasta la Vista, California

Morford on the Arnis.

And Schwarzenegger's bouncing around like a Hummer on meth, inflicting that weird maniacal grin and massive blocklike head all over the unsuspecting media, as pretty much the entire population of even slightly aware and intelligent people in California and in fact all over the nation go, oh holy Christ, please dear God no.

Now This is a Good Deal

Amazon is selling the soon-to-be-released box set of the first 4 seasons of Buffy for only $120 right now.

You can also pre-order the 5th season...

Oh, and since I'm copping to my geekness and sitting here watching the Special Edition of the Fellowship of the Ring we shouldn't forget that the Two Towers Special Edition is coming out fairly soon.

The former was really a far superior movie to the one released in theaters. I'm hoping it's true of the Two Towers, too.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

So far we've either found one vial of this or a vial filled with harmless ubiquitous bacteria, depending on whether you believe David Kay or George Bush. What a choice.

Heads-Up Gate

Wyethwire is absolutely correct. The Bush administration has already crossed a serious line, and one which caused one of Clinton's deputy secretaries to lose his job. Somebody gave the heads up to Alberto Gonzalez that an investigation was about to begin, and as Nina Totenberg informed us, someone in the JD subsequently agreed to a request to delay for a day a memo forbidding any further scrubbing attempts. Where is the outrage? From NPR:

The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?

Had Enough?

Pre-order yours today.

Where Alabama Goes...

so goes the Nation?

Anyway, I get all my important Alabama news over at War Liberal. It really is like watching a slow motion train wreck. You may remember that the governor lost a referendum to radically overhaul their tax system, and since it didn't pass the state is basically having to cut everything. They're Grover Norquist wet dream kind of cuts. So, if you want to know what life in Grover Norquist's America might look like, it appears that Alabama will be the prototype.



You can read all the Alabama posts at this link.

The World is a Better Place

So, Bush keeps saying that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq. Well, fine, okay, let's stipulate for sake of argument that it's true. But, that isn't the question - the question is whether or not this was the best use of $150 billion and climbing and more than 300 lives.

Shorter Arnold

I did some bad things, I won't tell you what they are, but I'm really truly sorry to all the people I hurt whoever they may be.

Uh, TAPPED?

Honesty is great and all, and I don't want our candidates letting loose big whoppers, but aren't there some bigger nits to pick?

Is NPR doctoring transcripts?

This is pretty creepy.

Anyone Hear...

...what Bob Nofacts said on CNN just now about the CIA leak? I wasn't paying attention and only got the last couple of seconds...

ah, someone wrote in just as I asked:

Novak was just on Judy Woodruff and used the opportunity to further smear Wilson and wife. He said Wilson gave over the limit to Gore, had to give $1,000 back, and the same day wife gave $1,000 to Gore listing a fictitious employer. Novak says he's been told (by whom?!) that this is illegal for CIA deep cover agents (listing fictitious employers).
I think just about everyone watching must have winced to see him saying all this. he also refused to say whether he'd had a summons, under advice of counsel. I really think CNN will cut him loose.


Anyway, obviously this administration is much more concerned with sliming its opponents than, you know, national security. And, the analyst lie is, no pun intended, no longer operative.


...CNN really needs top stop this. It's like Monica all over again when half the press was really part of the story and pretending not to be. Novak should be required to stay clear of this when he's wearing his journalist hat. If they want to have him be an interview subject, fine.

The Mutiny Begins

I commented yesterday that I was a bit surprised that Bill O'Reilly was defending Limbaugh. I figured he'd see it as an opportunity to dethrone the king and seize control. C-list wingnut Michael Graham decides to put the knife in.

Nasty

heh heh.

Dick Cheney is Jewish?

I saw this yesterday and it made me want to puke:

MOWBRAY: Well, first, I would like to respond to the last comment made about the neo-con shell game that's going on. This is a big red herring that the people on the left always want to drag out. You know, the so-called neo-con cabal. Some people just come outright and say that they mean the Jews in the administration."

You know first the said this PNAC stuff was a grand conspiracy theory. Then they said it was not conspiracy because it was all out in the open and it's just our foreign policy and they've been honest about it. Now they're accusing people of being anti-Semites for using the word neoconservative.

Goodbye Leon Harris

CNN's giving a nice sendoff to Leon Harris, making them officially an all white network* (link suddenly bloggered...scroll down). In his teary final comments he made a very direct statement to the rest of CNN - "You're here for what this place stood for." He paused for a few seconds and then kind of muttered "and what I think it can continue to stand for."

*Okay, there's Soledad O'Brien who is part of the much-in-demand "not Hispanic-looking Hispanic" demographic.

Bush Says US has Totalitarian Government

"Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
-Bush, just now.

Fox News Viewers Ignorant

We knew this:



Cue wingnut trolls proving how stupid they are by arguing that these things are TRUE damnit!

Bernstein

Here:

Bernstein said he would not have disclosed the name of the CIA employee if he had been in Novak's shoes, but would have, instead, sought to find out why the name was being leaked. "The real story here was always what the White House did in terms of going to Novak," he said. "If somebody from the White House called me under those circumstances, I would not print that she was a CIA operative. The story would be the conduct of the White House."

Indeed.

Good for the Inky

Here:

Author Al Franken was right.

Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat idiot. Well, less fat than formerly, but still an insufferable blowhard and bully, mired in self-aggrandizing delusion.

...

One irony of this controversy is that Limbaugh's comment was no more outrageous or off-base than dozens of things he says each week on his popular show.

Limbaugh is one of the central players in the spread of an extensive, alternative media network designed to give conservative viewpoints a far more explicit, unchallenged airing than liberal views ever do in the so-called "liberal media" conservatives are always decrying.

On his show, Limbaugh's views rarely get tested by contrary argument or corrected by fact police; his callers agree with and adore him. Those who would dare challenge his preconceptions, his tidy narrative of how liberals are the root of all evil, get little air time.

Inside this cozy RushWorld, it's easy for him and his listeners to assume their views are the undisputed truth. It's interesting that it took only four weeks for Limbaugh to trip over his acid tongue on ESPN. That's not, as he would have it, a measure of the mainstream media's reflexive political correctness. It's a reflection of how out of touch he is with the majority of Americans who have a clue about what's really going on.

Outrage

This is incredible:

For several days in early September, supervisors at Abington Memorial Hospital told African American employees to stay out of a patient's room after a man ordered that no blacks assist in the delivery of his child.

Despite a hospital policy stating that "care will be provided on a nondiscriminatory basis," maternity ward staffers accommodated the man's wishes.

David Corn Interview

Buzzflash interviews David Corn here.

He has a new book out documenting the flights of fancy by Dear Leader. At 320 pages, I assume it's only volume I.

Memo to Denny and Dick

Dear Denny and Dick,

The responsibility for correcting the problem of unauthorized disclosures of classified information falls squarely upon the shoulders of all Government officers and employees who are privileged to handle classified Government information. Department and agency heads have substantial authority to address the problem of persons who engage in the unauthorized disclosure of classified information within their own organizations through suspension or revocation of clearances and procedures to terminate employees in the national security interests of the United States.

Love,


The Crisco Kid
October 15, 2002

Full memo here.
(thanks to Sovok)

Job Report Out

Here.

Official rate remains at 6.1%, but if one adds a couple of extra digits there's been, as predicted, a slight uptick. Labor force participation is down.

Payroll is up 57,000. I'm sure Max will soon tell us just how many jobs Junior has to create to make good on his promises, as will the site of his employer. And the wingnuts will cite this as further proof that we need an even bigger tax cut.

...Wampum has more.

UPDATE: Jobwatch has now been updated to include this lovely graph. We're now 672,000 jobs behind the Bush administration projections which were used to justify the latest tax cuts.

Time for Bob to Go?

Mark Kleiman says it's time for Bob Novak to go. I think it's long past time for lie peddlers like Novak and Safire to go. Both have repeatedly passed on information from sources that has later turned out to be false, and then failed to either run corrections or reveal the source.

Unbelievable

Check this shit out:

As pressure built on his aides, Bush joked about the matter. During a roundtable discussion with reporters for African news organizations, he was asked about three reporters in Kenya who were detained this week in what some journalists saw as an effort to intimidate them into revealing sources. The detention drew a condemnation from the International Federation of Journalists, which complained that the government has been harassing and brutalizing journalists.

"I'm against leaks," Bush said, to laughter. "I would suggest all governments get to the bottom of every leak of classified information." Turning to the reporter who asked the question, Martin Mbugua of the Daily Nation, Kenya's largest daily newspaper, Bush said, "By the way, if you know anything, Martin, would you please bring it forward and help solve the problem?"

No you asshole, you aren't against leaks - you're just against leaks YOU DON'T APPROVE OF you pathetic piece of shit. Bob Woodward has already informed us you PERSONALLY dole out classified information to reporters, and "top administration officials" are ALWAYS leaking to the press.

Some journalists have been detained to intimidate them, and you JOKE about it? What the fuck?

The current issue isn't about "leaks," it's about REVEALING THE NAME OF A DEEP UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE.

God it's too early for this shit.

Florida Law

Florida Statutes
893.135 Trafficking; mandatory sentences;
(c)1. Any person who knowingly sells, purchases, manufactures, delivers, or brings into this state, or who is knowingly in actual or constructive possession of, 4 grams or more of oxycodone, or 4 grams or more of any mixture containing any such substance, but less than 30 kilograms of such substance or mixture, commits a felony of the first degree, which felony shall be known as "trafficking in illegal drugs," punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. If the quantity involved:
a. Is 4 grams or more, but less than 14 grams, such person shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 3 years, and the defendant shall be ordered to pay a fine of $50,000.
b. Is 14 grams or more, but less than 28 grams, such person shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 15 years, and the defendant shall be ordered to pay a fine of $100,000.
c. Is 28 grams or more, but less than 30 kilograms, such person shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 25 calendar years and pay a fine of $500,000.


(thanks to cc)

Wow

Even Gordon Liddy won't defend Rush.

Shrill

This column proves, without a doubt, that Paul Krugman is an enemy of the state.

Even Steven

Make sure to check out tonight's Daily Show. (you can catch it tomorrow at 7)

Wow

Watching Aaron Brown go over tomorrow's news, and Rush hits the front page on many.

Reminder and Thanks

Just wanted to remind people to please make your Amazon purchases through this link or one of the links to the left(And to thank those who do). I'm not telling you to use Amazon - please feel free to shop where you want- but if you are buying through them anyway simply clicking on a link through this site will throw me a few nickels. It isn' t much on any individual purchase, but it adds up over time.

Aaron Hearts Judy

Judith Miller is coming up on Aaron Brown. hoo boy.

One more comment. It's time for the Times to do a Wen Ho Lee (important)/ Jayson Blair (not important) - style forensic revisiting of all of her articles. When your sources lie, you name them and correct the record.

Arnold Hearts Hitler

Frankly, I don't think what Arnold said, or to a lesser extent did, in the 70s matters much. Of course, that's a "republican only" standard, for whom youthful indiscretions happen well into middle age, but still.

As for his Nazi fondness, his closeness with Kurt Waldheim was far more disturbing. And, his belief that women's breasts are public property is still more disturbing. I'm pretty disgusted by the general "boys will be boys" tolerance of this bullshit. It's a crime. Misdemeanor sexual battery at a minimum.

But, anyway, here it is. This is really old news/gossip, but it's hitting the mainstream.

Speculation Quieting Down

Obviously I can't say for sure, but reading the tea leaves it seems that the media has sorta stopped speculating out loud about the identity of the leakers. I assume it's because by now literally every journalist in Washington knows - or thinks they know - the identities.

hm.

Leave it to Slate

what a useless bunch of twits.

Just to add: Barra provides evidence that McNabb is "overrated" and then he asserts, without any evidence, that it is because McNabb is black.

One last time, really slowly, so even the stupid whores at slate can understand...

Athletes are overrated all the time. Pick any random popular athlete, and you will be able to find no shortage of people who will claims he/she is overhyped. The issue here is whether or not McNabb is overhyped because of his race, and more importantly whether there is any evidence to suggest that's actually the reason.

Barra says "But the truth is that I and a great many other sportswriters have chosen for the past few years to see McNabb as a better player than he has been because we want him to be," after writing an entire article about why McNabb isn't any good. He can only speak to his own motives, not that of other unnamed sportswriters whose motives he hasn't divined, and he hasn't presented any evidence that before Rush's brilliant revelation he had given McNabb more favorable coverage than he deserved. He may have "want[ed] him to be better" but he offers no evidence that he wrote better about him.

All together now... HACK!


...Jesse has more.

And then there were 9...

Graham dropping out.

That's why they call him...

... Robert Nofacts.

A Moment of Compassion

I'm not obligated to feel or express any compassion for Rush Limbaugh. There are 6 billion other people on this planet, almost all of whom are more worthy than Rush of any emotional energy I wish to expend. My attitude - and approach to this blog - is that it's fair to treat people with about the same degree of fairness and venom that they treat others. And, by that criteria, Rush is truly in a class of his own.

Having said that, drug addiction is (contrary to Rush's assertions below) a serious disease. While I'm all for mocking Rush's (alleged) problems with as much bile as he throws at anyone who is down on their luck, I do want to make it clear that I'm not mocking drug addiction or drug addicts generally.

When this story unfolds, my guess is that (if the basic facts that we know are true) it will be spun that poor Rush suffered from chronic pain for awhile, and in the process he got hooked. That may even be true. But, much like Andy Sullivan claiming (perhaps truthfully) that he got HIV from unprotected oral sex, and it was therefore due to an "accident," and not due to "reckless behavior," this is just a way absolving himself of any responsibility, a particularly bad strategy for someone trying to kick a drug habit. As those 12 steppers say, "if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you got."

If Rush were ever willing to cut anyone else that kind of slack, I might even buy it. I don't blame Sullivan for getting HIV and I won't blame Rush for becoming an addict. However, they do blame others for similar misfortunes. We make choices, and sometimes we get lucky and sometimes we don't. We should have a bit of empathy for the people who don't.

A final transcript (For now):

Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?

...Arthur Silber has some more comments.

Rush Limbaugh Show, 9-23-93

LIMBAUGH: OK. Welcome back and thank you very much. You're watching RUSH LIMBAUGH, the television show. Substance abuse--that means drug addicts. We're now going to cover their rehabilitation if this plan goes through.

Jerry Colangelo is the president of the Phoenix Suns. He's a man I've recently met this year as a guest of a friend of mine who's the coach of the Phoenix Suns, Paul Westphal. I went out during NBA finals in June--went--with them to Chicago. Had lunch with Mr. Colangelo. He's done miracles with this franchise. Six years ago, five of his players were charged with drug abuse and this kind of thing. And it--they've--they've got a wholesome operation out there--very cultured, very classy operation. Family entertainment's the way that they look at their basketball games and their team, and this re--it set them back. Colangelo vowed it's never going to happen again. He's got a player named Richard Dumas. One-time violator of the NBA drug policy. Got caught again violating the terms of his rehab. Colangelo says, I've had it. You're not playing here for this whole season. I don't care if you're clean. You've got to show me that you cannot--that you can stay clean for an entire career. I'm not going to pay you this kind of money.'

I want to let you read along with me a quote from Jerry Colangelo about substance abuse, and I think you'll find that he's very much right. Put it up, Chet, and I'll read along.

(Graphic on screen)

"I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don't buy into the disease part of it. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you are making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that."

Jerry Colangelo President Phoenix Suns

LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) He says that, I know every expert in the world will disagree with me, but I don't buy into the disease part of drug abuse. The first time you reach for a substance you are making a choice. Every time you go back, you're making a personal choice. I feel very strongly about that.'

What he's saying is that if there's a line of cocaine here, I have to make the choice to go down and sniff it. And I don't know how--how to do it, but if I was going to do it, I'd do it. If there were a gun here, it wouldn't fire itself. I've got to reach for it and--and pull the trigger. And his point is that we are rationalizing all this irresponsibility and all the choices people are making and we're blaming not them, but society for it. All these Hollywood celebrities say the reason they're weird and bizarre is because they were abused by their parents. So we're going to pay for that kind of rehab, too, and we shouldn't. It's not our responsibility.

Rush Limbaugh Show, 10-1-1992

LIMBAUGH: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for tonight's weather forecast from Rush Limbaugh. No, I want to show you something. This is a map of the United States. And these blue dots represent everywhere in the country you can watch this show. We--I'm not kidding--we have over 200 television stations, and the way this is measured in television lingo, we now blanket 98 percent of the country, but I want--I want to show you one dot that isn't blue. This dot, ladies and gentlemen, this red dot happens to be our nation's capital. If Jesse Jackson--the Reverend Jackson were to have his way, this would be the new state, New Columbia, appropriately named since there's drugs and crime there.

Rush Limbaugh Show, 1-15-96

In fact, I'm reminded--I had this story about three weeks ag--maybe it was before Christmas, maybe it was as far back as November--but there were a couple of drug convictions out in--I think it was a Colorado court. And these guys had--had done some really bad stuff, and there were mandated federal sentences for the crimes they had committed. And the judge apologized to the criminals while sentencing them because he thought it was too severe. He apologized and the com--the community was outraged. So we've gone from a judge sentencing a mother who makes her child beg six months in jail, to judges apologizing for getting dope dealers and crack dealers and drug salesmen off the streets with too severe a sentence.

Miller Much More Serious Than Jayson Blair

One could suggest that the reason Miller still has her job is that she's white*...

There is a widespread perception among staff that her work has brought dishonor on the newspaper. The perception that she's protected at the top is widespread, and the reluctance of editors to penalize her adds to that, one of my sources said. Why did an assistant managing editor consistently defend her work of the last year? One of the deans of political writers at the Times tells me: "It makes no sense [but] the only thing I can think of for that clap-trap going into the paper without adequate reporting safeguards -- maybe sniffing the Raines?"

Once reporter Steve Engelberg (he is said to have spent a good portion of his time keeping Miller honest) left the three-dimensional investigative team of Engelberg, William Broad, and Miller, "she had a free ride under Howell and Boyd to do what she wanted. They protected her, particularly Boyd," according to one of my sources.

As they continue to protect Gerth.

*Just echoing the standard line on the Blair fiasco

Amen

Good for him:

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie today accused ESPN of "institutional racism" for its decision to hire Rush Limbaugh and for the portrayal of NFL players in the fictional series "Playmakers."

ESPN had tarnished its image of being one of the most respected media outlets for NFL coverage for the sake of ratings, Lurie said. The hiring of Limbaugh and the show are examples of "racist potshots" toward the league, he said.

"Some of the events of this week are built with institutional racism," Lurie said. "It exists. Let's not hide it. Let's not make us believe the problem is a single person. It's far from that."

A telephone message seeking comment from ESPN today was not immediately returned.

The guardians of our national discourse (and yes, I mean YOU Howard Kurtz. And NBC. And Espn.) have for too long ignored the amount of explicit and implicit bigotry which oozes from Limbaugh's every utterance. ESPN knew that when they were hiring someone "controversial," that what controversial meant was "bigot."

Henceforth...

A few people (including Tresy) have suggested the new street name for OxyContin should be "dittos," and a new name for OC addicts be "dittoheads," a la "crackheads."

Shocking

House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi just compared Republican attempts to cut Medicare spending with the Holocaust.

ha ha ha, just kidding.

That didn't actually happen of course, but people are telling me that Grover Norquist just compared taxes to the Holocaust on NPR's Fresh Air.
In comments Peter provides this report:

I listened pretty carefully, and with some astonishment. Grover was making the point that in this country, people often go up and down the income scale, so a tax cut for the "rich" can benefit everyone. Terry Gross responded with a question about the estate tax repeal, which clearly benefits only those who have rich parents.

Grover calmly segued into a moral argument: that is was immoral to discriminate against one group of people just because they were different, ie, rich. He said something like, "It's like the Holocaust, people saying, 'Oh, it's okay, they're just going after those people there... not me.' Something is immoral no matter who they're doing it too."

Terry, who is very kind of all sorts of guests, interrupted: "Excuse me... did you just compare taxes to the Holocaust?"

"No," said Grover, and then did it again. He repeated that whether or not you're taxing someone, or "shooting" someone, its immoral for you to accept it just because it's happening to someone else. He also then threw in a comparison to the Apartheid regime of South Africa.

Briefly: this interview was actually disturbing. Norquist laid out ridiculous arguments and nebulous facts with the calm, reasoned manner of a Lyndon LaRouche: someone who believes that only he has the truth, and everyone else is deluded or evil.

The interview started with him responding to Terry's question: "How do we pay for the war in Iraq, etc." by him saying, "Interesting use of the word 'we.' We are the people. The government is THEM. THEY have to pay for it; we don't."

And this man talks to the President and his senior advisers on a regular basis.

Can't wait for the transcript...

UPDATE: Sadly No kindly provides the transcript:

Norquist [Discussing the death tax] I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it's only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust, it's only a small percentage, it's not you it's somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just, if you've paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.

Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?

Norquist: No, the morality that says it's ok to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn't target everybody. It's just a small percentage what are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you, it's them. And arguing that it's ok to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them, and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I'm only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn't affect the rest of you, I'm only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.

The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it's immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.

Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?

A. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don't let this bother you I'm only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it's immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone. And they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die.

Way to Throw an Opening, John

So, John King just had Tom DeLay talking about how great it will be if CA gets the gubernator because the state needs someone to restore "fiscal sanity."

Um, John, couldn't you have maybe, just maybe, mentioned the federal deficit?

Drip Drip Drip

Even Fox...

Newspaper reports alleged Limbaugh got the drugs from his housekeeper. But a source close to the investigation told Fox News that Limbaugh had other drug suppliers and could become a target of future criminal probe.

The investigation apparently began as a probe into the illegal sale of prescription painkillers in South Florida that targeted dealers. But later investigators came across Limbaugh through clues gathered in a bust a Palm Beach County (search) in May, revealing him as a buyer.

...

Asked about the culpability of Limbaugh in an investigation which did not target him, the source told Fox News that he could still face charges for having a large quantity of prescription painkillers without a prescription, but said no charges are imminent.

(via Hesiod)

I'm quite disappointed in Bill O'Reilly. He's apparently defending Rush on his radio program. He should've seized the opportunity to throw Rush overboard...

The Palm Beach Post has a picture of the maid up...

and, here's a story.

Rush Limbaugh Show, 10-13-95

... Story number two: St. Paul, Minnesota. A state legislator, a Democrat, spent hours driving drunk around Minnesota on Wednesday, threatening to kill himself with a BB gun and talking by--and--talking by car phone to people who begged him to stop and get help for his alcoholism. Name is Bob Johnson. He was arrested on a well-traveled two-lane highway just outside Bemidji--if I'm pronouncing that right; I hope I am--and was extremely drunk according to the county sheriff; said he was driving erratically, taken to the county jail and placed under a suicide wat--suicide watch. This situation on Wednesday was so tense that the state Democratic Party asked the media to hold off reporting details until it was resolved.


Now get this: Bob Johnson, drunk, driving around Minneapolis, threatening to shoot himself with a BB gun--Wonder where Al Cowlings was this night?--was drunk and calling people on the phone. Lis--listen to this. Bob Johnson was once listed in legislative directories as a school social worker, quote, "recognized for work in fields of youth and family problems and alcohol drug prevention."'
Another Democrat--another--folks, these people are taking it really hard, you know, these


Democrats, threatening to kill themselves with a BB gun, getting drunk. Here--a guy who had been cited, who had been recognized for his great work in alcohol and drug abuse is drunk on the highways. This is just--it's tragic, but it's just--it's outrageously funny. And he is just the latest in a series of Democratic legislators in Minnesota accused of crimes including shoplifting, spouse abuse and insurance fraud. Conflict resolution, Democrats and all their good social works, and still, look at what ha--it just--it's--it's hypocrisy. ...

(thanks to jm)

Rush Limbaugh Show, December 16, 1994

So we're not going to get on--we don't fault these animals for a lack of discipline, but we get on human beings who are fat for lack of discipline and you know it and I know it. But here's the thing that struck me about this. We have alcoholics and drug addicts in our society, don't we? And what do we say about them? Well, they can't help it. Why, it's genetic. Why, they have a disease. Why, put one thimbleful of scotch in front of them and they can die.'

We totally exempt them from any control over their lives, do we not? Some athlete will spend two years snorting lines of coke. He can't help it.' You know, it's--it's just--it's not--it's--it's genetic. These people--they're predisposed to having this addictive syndrome. They--they can't help--yeah, like that line of cocaine just happened to march into the hotel, go up to the athlete's room and put itself right there in front of him on his blotter.