Too Delicious Not To Repeat

Soup Cans: Did Maureen Dowd Mistake Journo for Michelle Obama?
NYPost, Page Six:

February 7, 2008 -- A CLAWING cat fight over mistaken identity has broken out between New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and a writer for the Times of London.

At the core of the mystery: Did Dowd mistake journalist Michelle Henery, who is black, for Michelle Obama? Or did Henery mistake some other redhead for Dowd?

In a column in the London paper this week, Henery wrote that Dowd, "one of my journalistic heroes," came up to her in the press room after the last Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama debate in LA. ". . . She was in my face, smiling warmly, greeting me like a long-lost friend. My mind went into overdrive trying to figure out why the world-renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times uber-columnist . . . was speaking to me. The shock . . . left me momentarily speechless, but in those few seconds Maureen's sweet smile turned into embarrassed confusion and she scampered off."

Henery continued, "The next day I e-mailed a group of American friends, asking whose doppelganger I was. They all agreed: 'She must have thought you were Michelle Obama.'"

Henery, a 1998 Georgetown University grad, added sarcastically: "Of course! I mean, despite her having almost 15 years on me and more than 3 inches in height, not to mention that she should be immediately recognizable having had her face plastered across every newspaper in America for the past three months, we're like twins . . . I wondered how white America was going to elect a black man for president if they could not even tell us apart." She joked: "Maureen, no hard feelings. When you came up to me, I mistook you for Arianna Huffington."

MoDo, that slut, denies all. Stay tuned. Is there any woman in America more deserving of being in an intercontinental factfree catfight than hissing, spitting, venomous MoDo? Mrrrreow.

The queen of mean seems to be winning; the Times of London has removed Michelle Henery's column from its website. I'm sure lawyers are involved.

Blogtopia* Roundup, Tuesday, March 6, 2007

2.3 million Iraqis have left Iraq: Wampum: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Utah

It doesn't matter which one you pick. Every resident has to leave. That is the size of the Iraqi diaspora since the regime graduated from civil disenfranchisement to foreign wars. Its in Le Monde, and it doesn't matter that the press and the political class in the US won't touch the subject.

The Cherokee Nation has voted to eject the descendants of slaves: Professor Kim's News Notes: Cherokees eject descendants of their former slaves. More on the subject from Wampum: Nation and Race.

When Maureen Dowd mocks Democrats, is she so different from Ann Coultergeist? Daily Howler doesn't think so: WHEN YOU READ DOWD, YOU’RE RIDING WITH COULTER

Digby piles on (if you're not reading Hullabaloo every day, you're the poorer for it): Digby: Tarzan, Jane and Cheetah

The underlying premise of the modern conservative movement is that the entire Democratic party consists of a bunch of fags and dykes who are both too effeminate and too masculine to properly lead the nation.

Jill points out that Halliburton (can you believe it, upstanding corporate citizen Halliburton?) has been caught drilling for oil in Iran: Brilliant at Breakfast: Halliburton's tentacles are everywhere

And this is not from the blogs, but is truly unbelievable. Dana Milbank notes in today's Washington Post (scroll down to bottom) that a soldier with a prosthetic arm was barred entry from the Congressional hearing on the Walter Reed and our scandalous treatment of wounded veterans yesterday, because the seats were "preselected". The seats were also empty.

*yes, skippy coined that phrase!

MoDo Is Such a Slut

I don't mean anything by it. I'm just taking the word back!

Maureen Dowd, NYTimes: What's Up, Slut? (TimesSelect Wall; full article at Ed Strong)

After eons of being a summary judgment that a woman is damaged goods, the word slut has shifted into more ambiguous territory. It can still be an insult, especially since there is no pejorative equivalent to suggest that a man has sullied himself with too many sexual partners. Men are players, women are sluts, just the way men are tough and women are bitchy.

A topic that is clearly near and dear to MoDo's heart; if you've ever watched any of her TV appearances you'll know what I mean.

What Becomes A Torturer Most? Medal of Freedom, Lifetime Court Appointment....

William Haynes, nominated for seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, leaves the British Attorney General's Office in London, in this Aug. 12, 2003 file photo. Haynes, an architect of the Bush administration's policy toward detainee treatment, which has since been abandoned, struggled Tuesday to save his nomination to an appellate judgeship. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
He looks so banal for being so evil

Bush nominates torture advocate and Pentagon general counsel William Haynes for 4th Circuit judgeship with lifetime appointment. Will Democrats stand up and filibuster, or go along yet again? MoDo actually takes on a serious subject in today's Times:

Maureen Dowd, NYTimes: He Let the Dogs Out! (TimesSelect wall), full article at Ed Strong

As three female protesters in Abu Ghraib-style orange jumpsuits and black headscarves stood vigil in the back of the Senate Judiciary hearing room, like the supernatural chorus in “Macbeth,” William Haynes was grilled about his worthiness to ascend to the federal bench when his main claim to the promotion is complicity in letting Dick Cheney dance a jig on the Geneva Conventions.

“The State Department characterizes the use of dogs as an interrogation aid as torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,’’ Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said to the Pentagon general counsel. “We publicly condemned the countries of Libya and Burma for using dogs in interrogation. In November of 2002, you recommended that Secretary Rumsfeld approve the use of dogs to intimidate detainees at Guantánamo.

“The Department of Defense’s own investigation concluded that this technique migrated from Guantánamo to Iraq and Abu Ghraib. At least two members of the armed forces have now been convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for using dogs to frighten detainees. It is striking that as these soldiers were prosecuted, you were being promoted. What message are we sending our troops? And what message are we sending the world, in light of your role in promulgating abusive interrogation techniques, like the use of dogs, stress positions and forced nudity. What message are we sending if we promote you to the second highest court in the land?”....."Well, we’re going to dispatch a few privates, a few corporals, a sergeant, maybe it will get to a lieutenant, but it’ll never get upstairs. ... Apparently, upstairs there’s a promotion party. Downstairs people are being sent to prison.’’

Mr. Haynes, 48, lamely resorted to the argument that Abu Ghraib was simply a few bad apples, “the work of the night shift, without any authority whatsoever.”....

[]

A group of 20 retired military officers sent a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, expressing “profound concern” about Mr. Haynes and arguing that he promoted policies that “compromised military values, ignored federal and international law, and damaged America’s reputation and world leadership.’’

They asserted that the policies “fostered animosity toward the United States, undermined rather than enhanced our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added significantly to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.’’

Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who is a military lawyer, a member of the Armed Services Committee and is close to the JAG Corps lawyers, is reported to oppose Mr. Haynes behind the scenes. Speaking to reporters in the hallway, he echoed Senator Durbin’s fear that soldiers should not take the fall for superiors’ decisions: “We just need to make sure that what we do in terms of promotion, of a civilian, who was part of policies that have led to military members being prosecuted and having their careers ruined, needs to be thoughtfully considered.”

WaPo: Bush judicial nominee struggles to win Senate OK

You Go, Girl

The student speaker at the New School graduation in New York City yesterday gave keynote speaker John McCain, fresh off his speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a piece of her mind. I don't think he enjoyed it too much. Support wars based on lies, pay the price. The first link is to her piece on Huffington Post, the second is to MoDo's column today (sorry, Times Wall)

Jean Rohe, Huffington Post: Why I Spoke Up

Maureen Dowd, NYTimes: Make Poetry, Not War (full article, Ed Strong)

NYTimes: Graduates at New School Heckle Speech by McCain

The first student speaker, Jean Sara Rohe, 21, said she had discarded her original remarks to talk about Mr. McCain.

"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all."

Noting that Mr. McCain had promised to give the same speech at all of his graduation appearances, Ms. Rohe, who was one of two students selected to speak by university deans, attacked his remarks even before he delivered them.

"Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."

She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions."

"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.

She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."

'A Figure in Absurdity'

Maureen Dowd: Say Uncle, Rummy (TimesSelect wall)

The former "Matinee Idol," as W. liked to call him, is now a figure of absurdity, clinging to his job only because some retired generals turned him into a new front on the war on terror. On his rare, brief visit to Baghdad, he was afraid to go outside Fortress Green Zone, even though he yammers on conservative talk shows about how progress is being made, and how the press never reports good news out of Iraq.

If the news is so good, why wasn't Rummy gallivanting at the local mall, walking around rather than hiding out in the U.S. base known as Camp Victory? (What are they going to call it, one reporter joked, Camp Defeat?)

In further evidence of their astute connection with the Iraqi culture, the cabinet secretaries showed up there without even knowing the correct name of their latest puppet. It turned out that Jawad al-Maliki, the new prime minister-designate, considered "Jawad" his exile name and had reverted to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

If Iraq were American Idol, Matinee Idol would have been voted off the show long ago.

Link to the full article: Ed Strong, The Daily Mindbender: Maureen Dowd: Cranky, Eccentric "Uncle" Rummy

Final (Worthy) Op-Eds from the NYTimes

Frank Rich:

Message: I Care About the Black Folks

Maureen Dowd:

Disney on Parade

Paul Krugman

Not the New Deal

Tomorrow, the $50 subscription wall begins. I'll miss these three. The rest of the gang, feh, good riddance.

Quick Hits

From Eschaton: Potty Break President Photo Op caught in the act by a Reuters photographer.

From Talking Points Memo: Part I and Part II, Michael Chertoff is an even bigger idiot than Michael Brown

Talking Points Memo was on a roll today: This story, about Dick Cheney ordering power restored to a pipeline on August 30th. Halliburton uber alles, you know.

And again TPM, the House member who has been criticized for using the National Guard to take him to his house in New Orleans? Bill Jefferson's house was raided by federal agents a month ago as part of a federal criminal investigation.

From dailykos: From Blitzer Today: Hiding the Bodies, Part 2 Will we ever hear the real death toll, or will it be covered up?

Party above people: Who's partisan? Bush called Gov. Barbour (R-Mi.) repeatedly after Katrina; Gov. Blanco (D-La.) had to chase him down.

From Kevin Drum, Gay Marriage We've had gay marriage for a year now in Massachusetts, and guess what? Nothing's changed, except for a few thousand people have gotten married and gotten hospital visitation rights, and inheritance rights, and health insurance, etc.

My last full Maureen Dowd link (she's going behind the NYTimes $50/year subscription wall next week): A Fatal Incuriosity

The Smirking Chimp: Even though a federal court has ruled the media may photograph the removal of the dead, the military are not allowing it: As bodies are recovered, reporters are told 'no photos, no stories'

Molly Ivins on Halliburton: The Graft Goes On

United States of Shame

United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

The Corporate Media "Finds" Gannongate

In the New York Times today:

Frank Rich
The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

Maureen Dowd
Bush's Barberini Faun

And the Washington Post covered the story yesterday, albeit on the first page of the "Style" section:
Howard Kurtz
Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga

I'm waiting for an article by one of those pathetic "journalists" who sat in the White House press room with this fraud for two years & never even googled his name. Reporters? They hardly deserve the moniker.