His approval number isn't the only thing that's shrinking.

(I'd do a caption contest but I can't post graphics. Anything suggested here couldn't be more inaccurate than the actual caption.)

From everything I've read so far, the predictions of Pumpkinhead's dive were spot on.

Request for Assistance

I'm looking for idiot-proof assistance in the form of instructions on how to (1) narrow the gray band on the right side of the screen and (2) increase the font size for the text. When I started the blog someone (I believe it was skippy) kindly offered some instructions on how to narrow the gray margin, but at the time I decided to play it safe, recognizing that I am a tech moron. Preferably, the instructions would include advice as to how to return to the present settings if I screw up the template with the changes. Also, if Blogger won't allow me to make these changes, it would be appreciated if someone could let me know that. Please send any advice to the fastmail.fm address.

As a show of appreciation, anyone who offers advice will receive a free lifetime subscription to Roger Ailes, the weblog.

Not Much There

A nice way to start your Saturday.

The New Republic slaps its one of its nominal editors, Sully. Linking to the Annenberg Center "analysis" on the AWOL issue, Sully says:

THE DESERTER CHARGE: Here's a useful primer. Not much there.

Of the Annenberg Center report, TNR says today:

But Bush supporters might want to think twice before citing that study, which is but a slight paper showing about the level of rigorous analysis you'd expect from a White House press release. For starters, it merely compares different media accounts, ignoring the fact that the Globe's investigation drew on hundreds of records and numerous interviews with military officials, whereas other news stories counted the rebuttals of Bush's staff as heavily as military documents and testimony by his commanding officer. Indeed, the only original research the Annenberg folks seem to have done is an interview with, of all people, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, who dodges the entire question by saying that "the bottom line is he met his minimum requirements for that year." Absurdly, the report presents this as proof that Bush never skipped town, even though Bartlett was talking about what Bush did in 1973, when what's in question is what he did in 1972. But the report's biggest idiocy is its premise that, just because Bush did not technically desert or go awol, the criticisms of his military record are somehow irrelevant. But no one believes that Bush fled combat--he was never even in combat. Rather, critics charge--and, Bartlett notwithstanding, the evidence concurs--that Bush didn't fulfill his military obligations during a time of war. Needless to say, if the Annenberg study is the best dog the GOP can muster, then the DNC chairman has picked the right fight.

Choose one of the following:

(1) Indeed.

(2) Heh.

(3) Ouch.

(4) Advantage: TNR!

(5) Think twice? Sully don't play that!

Quarterhack Sack

At TNR.com, Gregg Easterhack gripes about how District Court Judge Shira Sheindlin's decision in the Maurice Clarrett case will "harm pro football," and raves about how great the NFL is. (Especially compared to the sucky NBA.) He doesn't mention, however, that he's an employee of the NFL. TNR doesn't mention it either.

Undoubtedly many people know Easterbrook's connection to the NFL; maybe even most of the people who bother to read an item about the NFL. But surely many people don't know it. So why hide the conflict of interest?

Easterbrook claims to write as a champion of young athletes, "most of them African American," who he thinks will be harmed by the decision. He says high school athletes who go directly to the pros will make big money, but won't learn the fundamentals, as they would in college. But you'd think that if the pros are paying large sums for winning athletes, they might actually want to maximize the return on their investment by teaching their highly-paid players the fundamentals. For that matter, if 19-year-olds are inherently inferior to college-trained players, why does Easterbrook fear that the 32 "divisions" of his employer -- all of whom purportedly "hav[e] a shared interest in keeping product quality high" -- will irrationally opt to throw money at the less-qualified youngsters?

Easterbrook also worries that high schoolers who go pro might lose out on their one chance for a free higher education. Well, maybe so, but those educations will go to other student-athletes, including some who might want them a little more. (And the ones who go pro will earn enough to cover tuition if they want a higher education later. You can still get through four years of Stanford on $11.9 million, right?)

It's a complex issue, and I'm sure there are some athletes who would benefit more in the long-term by deferring entry into the pros. But Easterbrook doesn't offer a particularly nuanced -- or objective -- look at the matter.

Patriots Gamed

Who will Larry Silberman blame for the so-called intelligence failures: career government employees or the political appointees in the White House?

Oooh, the suspense is killing me.

Bonus question: Which of his fellow commission members will Silberman threaten to punch out first?

Press The Meat

Look for (1) "hard questions" phrased in such an open-ended manner that Bush can answer them in any way he likes ("you're a fiscal conservative, but what about the deficit?," "is this country really safer since 9/11?"); (2) no gotcha quotes, unanticipated topics or facts and figures; (3) ample opportunity to either bash the Dems or claim the high road ("I'm too busy protecting the country to pay attention to what the Democrats say").

Only Fred Flintstone on crack would think Russert will rough Bush up. How's Russert going to "play[] those you-said-this-in-1999 clips" when the Administration won't allow a television monitor in the Oval Office, Putzie?

Update (2/5): The interview will be taped on Saturday, and Bush has already announced his agenda (intelligence and the "pursuing the war on terrorism"). We will get a real-time interview or Karl Rove's director's cut?

Easterhack, The East Coast Kaus

Here's some pretty definitive evidence that Gregg Easterbrook can't read. Following some introductory ass-kissing of Joe Lieberman, Easterbrook writes:

Over on "Larry King Live," Howard Dean was asked why his candidacy seemed to lose steam beginning around the time Al Gore endorsed him. Here is Dean's answer:

Because the establishment in Washington really realized that I might be the nominee and they did not like that. The media folks didn't like it, the other folks in the race didn't like it, and they did everything they could to make sure we weren't [successful].

This is a fairly loopy conspiracy theory. The big change since about the time of the Gore endorsement is that voters have begun to speak. Rightly or wrongly, voters are choosing Kerry and Edwards. Before actual voting began, Dean's campaign was all ephemera--polls, media attention, Internet action. Then voters weighed in, and the voters are picking someone else. Does Howard Dean seriously believe that "the establishment in Washington" somehow secretly controls the way people vote? If so let's hear the evidence, please.

Of course, Dean said nothing about a conspiracy, or about Washington "controling the way people vote." Dean declaring that the other hopefuls "did everything they could to make sure we weren't [the nomineel]" is such a non-controversial statement that it's banal. And certainly alot of Washington insiders and media types attacked Dean -- and those attacks increased at the time of (and in part because of) the Gore endorsement. What Dean doesn't say is that the insiders and the media and the other candidates conspired against him. Either Easterschmuck can't read or he's deliberately pretending that Dean said something he didn't.

(Here's the transcript -- which Easterbrook doesn't link to -- for context.)

If it's possible to win a Koufax with just four words, these are the words:

"owner of a fivehead..."

Brilliant!

Dennis Prager, An Obscene Joke

My close personal friend, Jeff Jacoby, delivers a solid b-----slap to that lying f---head, Dennis Prager. You'll recall Prager the Prat penned the following:

To the rest of America, however, when a man who runs for president deliberately uses the f-word in an interview with a national magazine, it is cause for concern. Nearly all non-liberals and even some liberals would regard such a person as one who has a different understanding of what preserves our civilization.

...The issue here is the public use of expletives.

But if [Kerry] uses the f-word in public in an interview, that is the public's concern. Many people do not understand this public-private distinction. That is why some callers to my radio show objected that I had never criticized President Bush's use of the word "a--hole" to describe a New York Times reporter. I explained that the president used the word only in a private remark to Dick Cheney when he assumed there was no microphone present.

The difference between using an expletive when you think no one can hear you and when you want the world to hear you should be obvious to everyone. But in part due to the unprecedentedly large number of people who have attended college, the obvious often needs to be explained.

If you are a Democrat and it troubles you that General Clark is proud to have Madonna's endorsement, that moveon.org celebrates by having a curse-in, and Senator Kerry uses the f-word in a magazine interview, you might want to reconsider your party affiliation. The Democratic Party has earned a reputation as a poor defender of our civilization against external threats. In fact, it has become a poor defender of our civilization. Period.

The dips--t following that column with this one:

That is why I am not troubled to learn that President Bush once used the f-word privately when speaking about the monster known as Saddam Hussein. Frankly, I am somewhat relieved to know he is real, not a saint (saints shouldn't be presidents -- I suspect that Jimmy Carter, a particularly poor president, never used such language), and to know that he really hated a man worthy of hate. However, had the president deliberately used the word in an interview and not immediately apologized, I would question his commitment to the rules of decency that make our civilization better. That is why what Sen. Kerry did frightens me....

We who are not on the Left think public cursing is a big deal, because we believe that people can pollute their soul, their character, and, yes, their society, just as they can pollute their rivers and their air and their lungs.

My friend Jeff reminds us of the following:

George W. Bush (in 1999) to Talk magazine: "They think it's like a high school election. . . . They've lost their f[uck]ing minds."

"'What do rich businessmen say when the man they just given money to tells them that getting rich isn't a noble pursuit? Bush doesn't even wait for me to finish the question. 'I don't care. I really don't care. Does anyone ever say 'Fuck you'? I don't care if they do,' he barks."

Hey Dennis.... F--k you! And keep up the good work, Jeff.

A Roger Ailes Declaration of Principles

A troubling rumor is spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire: It appears there are people who publish blogs who don't use their real name when writing. Can you imagine?

As I understand it, this is wrong because while you can debate these bloggers on the substance of their writings, you can't ridicule their mothers or poke fun at their fish-belly complexions and romantic and social faux-pas.

I hope that all my readers are as shocked and disgusted as I am by this phenomena.

(And remember: You can only trust a blogger who reprints anonymous e-mails under his or her real name.)

If UPI's Plamegate report holds up, the most overused phase of 2004 will be:

"The criminalization of policy differences"

Shhh.... If you listen closely, you can hear them practicing now.

Who Are Scooter and Hannah?

Talk Left links to a UPI report that two of Dick Cheney's men, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and John Hannah, are the focus of the FBI's investigation of the Plame leak. (Warning: link is to the Moonie rag, Insight.)

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said.

Who are these two men?

On Libby:

Libby and Cheney, in highly unusual moves, visited the CIA several times before the war, in what many observers saw as an attempt to pressure analysts to produce more damaging assessments about Saddam Hussein's arsenal or any connection with al-Qaida.

According to a Washington Post report on Monday, Cheney and Libby continued to press the story about 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta's meeting with an Iraqi spy in Prague long after the intelligence community had dismissed it. The two even insisted, on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council last February, that the charge be included in Powell's indictment of Iraq defying the council's resolutions.

On Hannah:

For months, Cheney's office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from the INC [Iraqi National Congress]. But a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney's staff, as one of two "U.S. governmental recipients" for reports generated by an intelligence program being run by the INC and which was then being funded by the State Department. Under the program, "defectors, reports and raw intelligence are cultivated and analyzed"; the info was then reported to, among others, "appropriate governmental, non-governmental and international agencies." The memo not only describes Cheney aide Hannah as a "principal point of contact" for the program, it even provides his direct White House telephone number. The only other U.S. official named as directly receiving the INC intel is William Luti, a former military adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who, after working on Cheney's staff early in the Bush administration, shifted to the Pentagon, where he oversaw a secretive Iraq war-planning unit called the Office of Special Plans.

On both:

Both administration officials said members of Cheney's staff, including chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and John Hannah, the deputy assistant for national security affairs, had worked closely with aides to Rumsfeld to promote the ideas that Iraq had hidden chemical and biological weapons, maintained ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations, and posed an immediate danger to the United States and its allies.

Busy boys. And they might get a whole lot busier.

Via Pandagon, we see that Nooners is asking the big questions:

Justin Timberlake: Evil or Retarded?

I'm particularly gratified to see that Nooners and I have singled out the same assinine quote from Mickey Kaus: her for praise, me for ridicule. Such validation is a true honor.

Kid Iraq

Gregg Easterbrook castigates Kid Rock for wearing an American flag poncho during his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show:

American Forces Network beamed the Super Bowl around the world to the dozens of distant nations where men and women of the U.S. military have gone to defend the kind of freedom that allows people like Kid Rock to become rich by making loud, unintelligible noises. Soldiers watching the game in the middle of the night in Baghdad or at the Bagram fire base in Afghanistan or at a hundred other places across the globe where Americans risk their lives to defend liberty--soldiers watching the game with one ear cocked toward the perimeter for sounds of the approach of the freedom-hating fanatics they have sworn to stop--had to behold the American flag being treated disrespectfully by a punk performer at the Super Bowl.

Playing the super-patriot, Easterbrook appears to forget that Mr. Rock performed for American troops in Iraq and Kuwait last year. Has Mr. Easterbrook traveled to Iraq or Afghanistan to entertain the troops with readings from his ill-concieved diatribes against non-Christian studio executives and rape victims who don't say the secret word?

Finally, a Republican so sleazy that even the Republican Mickey Kaus criticizes him. (Kaus does remember not to state the Puke's party affiliation.)

Here's Your Invitation, Whores

In the finest tradition of Gary Hart, Bush says "Bring it on!"

Go do your jobs this time.

You can start by asking Peter Jennings what he knows.

And Maria Andrews, Jennifer Fitzgerald and Untold Numbers of Sex Workers In The Pacific Rim Say: Amen!

February 4, 2004

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Today's ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is deeply troubling. Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. If activist judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage.

"Bad People Employ Bad People"

A Criminology of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's Staff

In The American Prospect, Farai Chideya addresses the laws that Bill Frist aide and accused theiving Republican bastard Manuel Miranda may have broken in accessing Democratic Judiciary Committee documents from a shared server:

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes, "Each time the Republicans accessed the Democrats' files without authorization, they at a minimum violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 USC Sec.1030(a)(2)." That statute includes anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains information from any department or agency of the United States."

Tien also rejects the reports that focus on the content of Democratic memos versus their theft. In describing this crime, he says, "It's pretty sleazy to blame the victim when you're the one exploiting the weakness in the first place. Good computer security is hard. Poor computer security is extremely common. ... I don't believe in double standards, so maybe we should think of all the companies and governments who have been hacked in the past few years because of poor security."

Pretty sleazy -- and not a defense to criminal charges!

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that Manuel is the latest victim of the Bush jobless recovery:

The Hill has learned that he agreed to resign under pressure from Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The Democrats have not agreed to scale back their demands for wide-ranging punishments following a full-blown leak inquiry.

In this exclusive photo, Bill Frist shows Manny what's behind Door Number 3: It's your ass in a sling, Manny! (Waahh .... waahh ... whahh)

Will any of Miranda's big media friends -- Sean Hannity, Novakula, etc. -- stick up for Manny? Don't count on it. Will they be subpeonaed to testify? Let's hope so!

Hey, Capitol Police! Don't forget to read Manny his Miranda rights... even if he doesn't believe in 'em.

Jonah Goldberg, Intellectual

This is why one academic dubbed the show 'Wagon Train in space.'"

That community college degree is really paying off for Lucianne, Jnr.

What a maroon!

The Lord Of The Whores Is Bored

Howie the Putz obediently recites the media line on Kerry: He's a bore.

"serious" "verbose" "tired" "flat" "tightly-scripted" "aloof patrician" "solemn and windy" "stiffest" "most entitled-looking" "faded." No one can accuse these hacks of not owning a thesaurus.

Kurtz's take is not too surprising, since the Conflicted One is recycling the post-consumer waste of folks like John Ellis, Michael Graham and Sully Joe.

Call me crazy, but I imagine an evening with Horse Face Kerry would be more lively than an entire hen week with the Four Doughboys of the Apocolypse: Putzie, Ellis, Graham and Sully.

Krusty the Klown On The Op-Ed Page

Geez. Bill Safire is at it again with his lame Nixon-in-purgatory schtick. If this stale gag was even remotely tied to reality, Tricky Dick would have gotten off two slurs against Joe Lieberman and three against Al Sharpton before Safliar finished the first question. The real Dick would have nothing good to say about John Kerry, who he tried to smear for because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Instead of writing fantasies, Bill, why don't you try a column on how your White House pals tried to slander Kerry?

P.S. The link mentions how, in 1971, the Nixon White House "planted tough questions" to be asked of Kerry on Meet the Press. Pumpkinhead can hold a 35th anniversary celebration for that continuing tactic during Kerry's second year in office.

Congratulations to Senator Edwards and General Clark for their primary victories. A competitive race will only make the eventual nominee a stronger candidate. An extended fight would lessen the chances of a Kerry/Edwards ticket (of course, there's no chance Clark or Kerry would accept a v.p. spot with any of the other candidates) but it also shortens the period for the RNC and its media whores to focus their attacks on the ultimate nominee. And it keeps the all important Roger Ailes primary in play.

What A Joke: The man who endorsed the Predator's candidacy for Governor, based on character, has this to say about the Super Bowl flap:

The issue isn't nudity but the implicit endorsement of acting out male fantasies of violent and invasive non-consensual sexual behavior. ... Never mind the message it sends to international audiences--say young, angry Muslims, to pick a random example, who may have been wondering whether America really is immoral. ...

The hack has adopted the Dennis Prager distinction: It's only wrong if it's not a Republican recorded.

Give 'Im Zell

Tomorrow's Washington Journal on C-Span features an appearance from Republican fraud, Zell Miller, pimping his right-wing tome. Here's the schedule:

7:30am - Roy Neel, Campaign Manager, Dean for President

8:00am [Eastern Time] - Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) on Libya

9:00am - Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA), Author, "A National Party No More"

9:30am - Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) on independent WMD commission

I hope some real Democrats will call Zig Zag Zell on his recent rendevouz with the bigots and haters at CPAC and his whoring for Bush. And to show Representative Lee some love, as well.

I Have No Evidence That These Stories Are True... But It Doesn't Matter!

Okay, I've milked this gag for all it's worth, and Crooked Timber has caused a bit of a stir with its version of this critique (and suffered a troll invasion led by an Elf, born of a bat). So, no more e-mails, please. But before I wrap this up, I wanted to acknowledge the fine work of those who took time to send these entirely plausible reports of Republican misbehavior.

From an outdoorsman (name withheld):

One time I was in Montana, fly-fishing, with my mother. And Dick Cheney came wading downstream and fished out his own fly and pissed in the river, and on my mother. I flung a dead fish at him, but he just put it in his creel and counted it for his own.

From a Tennessean (name withheld):

This email is not a joke. It is true. Many, many years ago, I was at my local Bide-A-Wee animal shelter looking to adopt a small dog for my ailing mother. A young woman was also there to drop off a box of kittens just birthed by her tabby that were too much for her to keep in her apartment.

Suddenly, we heard a bellow from inside the shelter. A man was screaming, "Don't give me that crap! I know you've got plenty more around here! Give me them! I need them! I need them!" The doors burst open and a young man came screaming out. He was an awful sight: blood spattered surgical scrubs, bits of fur and tissue in his hair, even a few drops of blood on his chin. He looked intoxcated but not from any liquor I'd ever heard of. His feral eyes looked wildly about the room as he wiped some spittle from his lips. Then he spotted the box of kittens. He let out a spine-tingling howl and rushed to seize them in his claw-like hand, knocking down the poor young woman in the process. Then like some banshee from hell he went screaming out of the shelter with the box under his arm.

Years later, when my late wife needed a triple bypass and the Hospital Corporation of America denied her surgery, I discovered that the man I saw who took away the cats was none other than Doctor Bill, our present Senate Majority Leader. Lord knows what he wanted them for.

From a Rice University graduate (name withheld):

Decades ago, while I was working my way through Rice University, I had a job as a diener in the morgue. I stayed there overnight as a sort of watchman and to receive and process the new cases that might come in.

During orientation I was given a short list of people who had in the past shown an unhealthy interest in our accessions, particularly when they were young and female. Photographs were included, and I could swear that one of them was George W. Bush, who at that time had not yet entered the service. However, whatever had happened was before my time, and I never saw him there in person.

I could kick myself for not keeping a copy of that list.

Fact or fiction? You be the judge. As Howie the Putz says, you're entitled to report about baseless smears which aren't relevant, as long as you say they're "lacking evidence." Now there's an ethical standard we can only dream of achieving!

Memo to Gail Collins and David Shipley

Astrology is made up.

It's fake!

It's bullshit!

Get your heads out of Uranus. That's Safire's job.

Another Ashcroft Tale

A concerned citizen e-mails us with a shocking story about the Attorney General and the perils of sexually-transmitted diseases.

Dear Roger Ailes:

It's interesting that you should request second- and third-hand stories about encounters with Republican politicians, because I happen to have one. I was talking to my brother-in-law's investment banker the other day, and the conversation turned to politics and the Washington scene. That's when he told me this story:

It seems his doctor told him that he (the doctor) was down in DC last month, and he went to his favorite brothel for some female companionship. He was being entertained by the young lady (her name way Kathy, but she liked to be called Aurora) when someone started banging on the door. Being in the middle of things, my brother-in-law's investment banker's doctor didn't really want to stop right then and there to see what was going on, but proceeded, instead, to the natural end of things. The banging continued (on the door, I mean) right up until the end, and then the door burst in explosively, and a man came flying into the room, landing on the floor at the foot of the bed where the couple had just a moment before completed their transaction.

The man was ranting and raving and demanding that the doctor leave immediately so that he (the man) could fuflill his appointment with the young lady, but the doctor was, as you can imagine, somewhat spent and needed some time to recuperate. Nevertheless, the man was screaming for him to get out and saying "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?" and so forth. Now, the man did look somewhat familiar to the doctor, but he couldn't place him immediately, so he took his time and went about his business of putting himself back together, while all the time the guy was yelling and saying "Do you know who I am?", until he (the doctor) suddenly recognized the man as being John Ashcroft, the Attorney General of the United States.

Now, I really don't know the doctor in question well, having never met him or spoken to him, but I take my brother-in-law's investment banker's word that he (the doctor) is a very quiet, soft-spoken guy who would normally never raise his voice or utter a word of disparagement even under duress, but the combination of the circumstances, and the fact that Attorney General Ashcroft was screaming at the top of his lungs, "Do you know who I am?", with his face all red and the veins bulging out from his neck, and his sickly little member dangling from his body, well, I guess that caused him (the doctor) to lose his cool a little, so as he was straightening his tie and putting on his jacket to leave, the next time that Ashcroft screamed "Do you know who I am?" the doctor just couldn't help himself, and he answered, "Yeah, you're the guy who's going to get VD if you don't put on a condom," which I thought was not only a great comeback, but also good advice for anyone about to avail themselves of the services of a lady of the evening.

Anyway, that's the story as it was told to me, and I swear that everything I personally experienced in it is true. I hope this is along the lines of what you are looking for.

[Name withheld by request]

Remember: It's in an e-mail, so it must be true!

Joe Long, Adijoes, Joe Revoir

Don't let the door hit you on jo' ass on the way out.

Joe Lieberman's campaign also unveiled a new Delaware TV ad today, urging undecided state voters to "be bold" in voting for Lieberman, a "man of faith and conviction" who has "always put aside partisanship to get results." "Trying to pick a candidate? Be bold," the ad says. "Choose integrity. Joe Lieberman's a man of faith and conviction, with a moral compass we need."

Results? You mean like the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and massive deficits? Those results?

It's time for you to go, Joe!

It's In An E-Mail, So It Must Be True

In order to keep up with the high journalistic standards of America's premiere conservative newsmagazine, Roger Ailes will publishing anonymous reader e-mails recounting our correspondents' personal second- and third-hand encounters with Republican politicians at their most arrogant, duplicitous and vile.

Did George Bush forget to flush when he visited your friend's house? Did Tom DeLay steal the towels at the hotel where your cousin works? Did you encounter Jonah Goldberg in a truck-stop restroom -- and live to tell the tale? E-mail us!

Don't worry about accuracy or accountability -- we don't care if you're telling the truth, and we promise to withold your name upon request. Hearsay? We love it! Can't think of a good story? Steal one from snopes.com! Plausibility is the only threshhold, so throw in some marginally convincing details and we'll play along. If it's good enough for Bill Buckley, it's good enough for Roger Ailes.

E-mail your anecdotes to rogerailes@fastmail.fm today. (Don't leave them in comments, you'll just lose credibility.)

They Are Unanimous

The high mucky-mucks at the F.C.C. have assigned their agency the job of "investigating" Janet Jackson's areola and the threat it poses to the children of beer guzzling, impotent football fans.

What there is to investigate, I'm not sure.

A blank videotape will run them $2.99, which will leave them $292,957,997.01 to do something important, like investigate the growing concentration of media ownership.

Here's an article from last week which suggests that Mikey Powell wasn't always so concerned with regulating broadcast content. Of course, that was before 2/1. As we all know, 2/1 changed everything.

While there's no such thing as a shorter Mickey Kaus, at least physiologically speaking, Jesse Taylor at Pandagon.net has distilled the essence of Kaus:

"Kerry's bad, Kerry Kabuki, Kerry Kerry Kerry's bad bad bad, why Bush's showing in New Hampshire is just as good as Reagan's in '84, so don't worry, Kerry's bad, Kerry and who's going to be the kamikaze to take him down, lots of stuff on why Dean is a failure as a candidate, Kerry's bad, Dean's the failure to point out why he's bad, Dean's a horrible candidate and everyone hates Kerry, I'm going to F____g Curse because Democrats are awful, as are the poll services that measure how well they're going to do."

If Jacob Weisberg had the brains God gave a squirrel, he'd sack the hack and offer Jesse Taylor Slate's blogger slot. Jesse's the better writer, by far, and, unlike Kaus, he doesn't have any pathological obsessions that he assumes everyone else shares.

P.S. -- The official recipe for essence of Kaus is two parts ricin to one part Rogaine, fermented in Lucianne Goldberg's oldest pair of support hose for three months.

Nantz Can't Dance

Didn't see the football game yesterday, but I caught sight of a boob during the pre-game show.

Not too much of a conflict for CBS to promote, for free, a political candidate who happens to be very close pals with the CBS Sports pre-game host, while nixing a paid ad opposing the pal.

And speaking of offensive, fatty mounds of flesh, Michael Powell has already ordered the FCC to conduct an investigation not of Bush's free election-year telly time, not of CBS's refusal to air an anti-Bush ad (and certainly not of the lies in his old man's televised U.N. presentation), but of an errant nipple that wandered into view between the numerous ads for anti-impotence drugs. I guess Mrs. Powell was sucessful in her efforts to distract Mikey's attention from the tube while those spots were running.

But, ya know, if anything gets the Joementum started, it's gonna be this.

Nary? Barely? Care We?

Called on his less than close reading of Joshua Marshall's article on Bush in the New Yorker, Andrew Sullivan pleads ignorance of the mother tongue:

Now technically speaking, there is one direct mention of 9/11 in a piece of several thousand words. For the record, I feel bound to correct that. I also made a dumber error that I do not proffer as an excuse, just an explanation: I intended "nary" to mean "barely." My original version of the item - on my draft document sheet - says simply 'not.' Realizing that was technically not true, I changed it to "nary" on the blog, thinking that would cover it. Not according to the dictionary.

Yet Sully has used "nary" before, and not to suggest "barely":

Gay journo Andrew Sullivan has inveighed against the media for effectively reprinting last year's CDC press release that one in three young black gay men has HIV. "Complete reiteration of CDC orthodoxy," he complained in June in The New Republic, "with nary an attempt to subject any of it to the teeniest bit of skepticism or statistical analysis." (link)

"Bill Clinton was and is a compulsive logorrheic. There wasn't a problem he couldn't talk his way into and out of, while doing nothing much at all except hiring more lawyers and keeping otherwise innocent people awake at night. There was barely a word he couldn't distort, nary a phrase he couldn't render meaningless by repetition. He was the president who will be remembered as redefining 'is' to evade what was." (link)

In addition, Sully's claim that he meant "barely" rather than "none" or "not" is wholly inconsistent with the language used in his original post: "SPOT THE MISSING PIECE," "For the Clintonites, 9/11 didn't really happen," "So if Marshall hasn't noticed 9/11...." "Lacuna," for fuck's sake!

Interesting that Sully would rather appear illiterate than admit he didn't read and re-read Marshall's short article, as he claimed. Very telling.