New National Post Column -- "Confessions of a 'Booger': The Agony and Ecstasy of Being a Democratic Convention Weblogger": I guess it ends up a little bit short on the "ecstasy" count.

08/10/2004 01:14 PM  |  Comment (1)

Tim Blair = Stalinist: Just let the record show that Tim Blair, Australia's favorite so-called "encourag[or of] global capitalism's savage inequities," has been prattling on, shrimps-on-the-barbie style, for the previous 90 minutes about how "Californians hate the planet" because we refuse to acquiesce to his Third World diktats about "using a clothesline instead of those energy-abusing clothes dryers." (I had to insert the word "clothes" in front of "dryers" in the previous sentence because, as another party rightly pointed out, the Australian race "wouldn't understand what you are talking about.") He literally carried an armful of his terrible under-garments to my backyard this afternoon, asking "where's the clothesline?" I could have sworn he even used the phrase "sustainable development" at some point, but maybe that was just me cursing at him. At any rate, he is basically a Communist.

08/10/2004 12:22 AM  |  Comment (9)

Adventures in Community College Courses: The instructor knows the terrifying answer.

08/09/2004 05:45 PM  |  Comment (0)

This Cartoon Is Worth More Than 1,200 Words: I wrote a hopefully humorous piece for this weekend’s National Post about what it was like to be a blogger at the Democratic Convention (will post it as soon as I can); meanwhile, Tom Tomorrow nailed it in just six panels.

08/09/2004 02:50 PM  |  Comment (1)

Dept. of Dreadful Lead Paragraphs: From the LA CityBeat's Mick Farren:

I learned a lot in the four days of last week's Democratic National Convention. I learned I have a passion for Teresa Heinz Kerry, and that Barack Obama is so brilliantly charismatic, he may well be an alien come to save humanity. I was reminded that Bill Clinton is still the Elvis Presley of political orators, and of why I liked Wes Clark in the first place. The tale of Alexandra Kerry's pet hamster is etched in my memory, but, above all, I learned that I detest Chris Matthews, and the absurd egos of cable-news performers may be the greatest threat to democracy since the Nazi Party.

08/09/2004 02:10 PM  |  Comment (4)

Jose Mesa, Professional Relief Pitcher and Procreator: Alert reader Scott "Look how busy I am at work" Ross asks you to click on the link, note the date of birth, and then read the biographical info at the bottom of the page.

08/09/2004 01:41 PM  |  Comment (6)

Is There a 'Pretty Much' Legal Standard? Glenn Reynolds, writing about the Swift Boat Dudes Who Hate John Kerry:

Indeed, if people start dishing dirt about these guys instead of offering factual refutations, it will pretty much serve as an admission that the charges are true.

What I don't understand is how anyone professes to truly give a flip about what John Kerry and George Bush did 32 or 36 years ago. On Friday, I was given a talking-to by a right-of-center friend (who told me, helpfully, that "even though you're a liberal we still like you") about Why I Should Care About the Swift Boaters, and last night a left-of-the-dial pal wanted to get me excited about Bush's National Guard service … and in both cases my reaction is the same: Is this what you're basing your vote on this November? Really? Whatever happened to the New Seriousness after Sept. 11? And how many people who are feverishly talking up all this nonsense have NOT already long made up their minds on who they're going to vote for?

As far as I can tell, every presidential candidate with military experience has embellished it, and every candidate with a youthful drug habit has tried to paper it over. If either one of these guys has used a dime of taxpayer money to obfuscate their pasts, well that sure is worthy of rebuke, but it would still rank about 1,754th on my list of Decisive Issues come November. Actually, that's not even true, it wouldn't rank at all. I'm going to vote for the guy who I think will do the best job leading the most powerful country in the world in the war against people who want to blow us up, period. Everything else -- only 32,000 new jobs this month! This one dude acted weird at a Wendy's! -- is an increasingly pointless and unfunny diversion.

08/09/2004 11:51 AM  |  Comment (29)

The Point of Terror Alerts Should Be to Alert Us About Terror: Roger Simon writes:

how indeed is the public to understand that we are at war if there are no terror alerts from the administration? From the Congress, the talking heads...? Let's be serious. That ain't gonna happen. If it is not brought home to the populace in a relatively graphic, even though extremely imperfect, manner, they will soon forget - if they haven't already.

08/07/2004 02:48 AM  |  Comment (18)

The 'Bush Lied' Publishing Boomlet: Browsing through Powell's Books in Portland the other week, I was flabbergasted at the huge number of new titles out there with George Bush's mug on the cover, calling him a liar and a bounder and a knave. So I thought it might be an interesting data point to collect them in one spot. That spot is here; please leave other suggested titles in the comments.

These are listed in order of Amazon rankings, with all other data (including spelling) coming from the online bookseller. Some books probably don't belong, some are probably very good, others are probably very bad, etc. I'll add new titles as they come, and I will also soon compile a "Liberals Suck Eggs" collection, for "balance." Enjoy:

14. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, by Anonymous
Publisher: Brassey's Inc; (July 15, 2004)

60. Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, by John Dean
Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (April 6, 2004)

76. Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency, by Robert Byrd
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; (July 2004)

174. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, by Richard Clarke
Publisher: Free Press; (March 22, 2004)

235. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, by Kevin Phillips
Publisher: Viking Books; (January 1, 2004)

270. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by Al Franken
Publisher: Dutton Books; (August 29, 2003)

283. House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties, by Craig Unger
Publisher: Scribner; (March 16, 2004)

393. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, by Chalmers Johnson
Publisher: Metropolitan Books; (January 13, 2004)

474. Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else, by David Cay Johnston
Publisher: Portfolio; (December 25, 2003)

499. Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia, by Gore Vidal
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books; (May 10, 2004)

755. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (November 4, 2003)

857. Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
Publisher: Random House; (September 23, 2003)

859. The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir, by Joseph Wilson
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers; (April 30, 2004)

1,113. Dude, Where's My Country?, by Michael Moore
Publisher: Warner Books; (October 7, 2003)

1,518. The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters, by Greg Palast
Publisher: Plume Books; Rev. American edition (February 25, 2003)

1,542. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; (January 13, 2004)

1,692. A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies, by James Bamford
Publisher: Doubleday; (June 8, 2004)

1,974. The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, by Paul Krugman
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (September 2003)

2,571. The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them, by Amy and David Goodman
Publisher: Hyperion; First edition (April 2004)

2,712. Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country--And It's Time to Take It Back, by Jim Hightower
Publisher: Viking Books; (August 14, 2003)

2,961. The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, by David Corn
Publisher: Crown; (September 30, 2003)

3,287. Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order, by Mark Crispin Miller
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; (August 16, 2004)

3,353. Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, by Joe Conason
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (May 25, 2003)

3,761. Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America into a One-Party State, by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher; (May 24, 2004)

5,013. The Bush-Haters Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years, by Jack Huberman
Publisher: Nation Books; (December 1, 2003)

7,259. Stop Bush In 2004: How Every Citizen Can Help, by Michael John Dobbins
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.; 0 edition (April 11, 2004)

7,558. The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, by David Brock
Publisher: Crown; (May 18, 2004)

8,836. Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq, by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher; (July 1, 2003)

10,414. The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America, by Eric Alterman and Mark Green
Publisher: Viking Books; (February 5, 2004)

10,868. Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You, by Paul Waldman
Publisher: Sourcebooks; (January 1, 2004)

12,038. Incoherent Empire, by Michael Mann
Publisher: Verso; (October 2003)

34,063. Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq, by Tariq Ali
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; (November 1, 2003)

34,283. The I Hate Republicans Reader: Why the GOP is Totally Wrong About Everything, by Clint Willis
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press; (September 1, 2003)

39,038. The White House Inc. Employee Handbook: A Staffer's Guide to Success, Profit, and Eternal Salvation Inside George W. Bush's Executive Branch, by the writers of WhiteHouse.org
Publisher: Plume Books; (February 3, 2004)

46,295. Big Bush Lies: The 20 Most Telling Lies of President George W. Bush, by Jerry “Politex” Barrett
Publisher: SCB Distributors; (May 31, 2004)

46,742. Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After: A Prelude to the Fall of U.S. Power in the Middle East?, by Dilip Hiro
Publisher: Nation Books; (January 1, 2004)

54,406. How Much Are You Making on the War Daddy? A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration, by William Hartung
Publisher: Nation Books; (January 1, 2004)

58,259. Bush's War For Reelection: Iraq, the White House, and the People, by James Moore
Publisher: Wiley; (March 5, 2004)

68,209. The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, by Christopher and Robert Scheer, Lakshmi Chaudhry
Publisher: Seven Stories Press; (January 15, 2004)

78,381. Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush, by John Bonifaz
Publisher: Nation Books; (December 10, 2003)

255,235. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism, by Paul Sperry
Publisher: WND Books; (September 4, 2003)

08/06/2004 12:25 AM  |  Comment (20)

More on Convention Music, and Other Missed Stories: From Jay Rosen.

08/05/2004 04:32 PM  |  Comment (0)

Some 'Media Monopoly' -- Five Conglomerates, Zero Agenda-Setting Newspapers: Jack Shafer:

In typical overstatement, Bagdikian writes, "These five corporations decide what most citizens will—or will not—learn." […] But the Big Five determine what the majority learns only in those places where the newsstand sells only the New York Post and Time and where TV receivers have been doctored to accept signals only from CNN, ABC, CBS, and the Fox News Channel—which is to say nowhere.

If anybody decides what most citizens learn, it's the agenda-setting editors at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. […]

For all the Big Five's alleged powers of mind control, consider the list of influential news organizations besides the Big Four Newspapers they don't control. The top newspaper chains: Gannett, Knight Ridder, Cox, Scripps, McClatchy, Landmark, Copley, Newhouse, Freedom, Hearst, MediaNews, and Tribune. The Boston Globe. Newsweek. The various flavors of NBC News. The New Yorker and Conde Nast's other titles. PBS. NPR. Reuters. AFP. AP. Bloomberg. U.S. News & World Report. Pearson. Hachette Filipacchi. The Atlantic. The Economist. And scores of local TV stations.

08/05/2004 10:11 AM  |  Comment (0)

Speaking of Critiquing Malkin’s Internment Book: I just wanted to bookmark this post for posterity….

08/04/2004 06:37 PM  |  Comment (1)

Look Who the Fair-Minded Kids Are Calling a Systematic Deceiver: Most of us have respect for the Spinsanity boys' take on political honesty, right? You know, those earnest, somewhat anal young men who have contributed to the discourse by dissecting the B.S. of Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd? (I once wrote about them a bit for Reason.) Anyway, they more than most have earned credibility as equal-opportunity debunkers, which is something to keep in mind before you click on that BlogAd to the left, advertising their brand-new book: All the President’s Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth. (I'm running the ad for free, in case you care about such things, though I may in theory take a three-cent commission on any sales it directly generates.) Some notes from the book's preface and introduction:

[T]he man currently doing the most damage to our political debate is the President of the United States, George W. Bush. […]

George W. Bush has done serious damage to our political system. His deceptions span nearly all of his major policies, were achieved using some of the most advanced tactics from public relations, and were designed to exploit the failings of the modern media. In the process, Bush has made it even more difficult for citizens to undersand and take part in democratic debate. […]

Previous presidents have also drawn on PR, of course, but Bush has gone far beyond his predecessors, systematically employing these dishonest strategies in nearly every major policy debate. […]

That is why, after nearly four years of constant deception on major issues of public policy, the President must be held accountable. If we fail to do so, Bush’s approach to political communications threatens to become the new standard for politics in America. From its campaign for tax cuts to the debate over war with Iraq, this White House has invented a new politics of dishonesty.

08/04/2004 04:46 PM  |  Comment (18)

Benefits of a Blogged Book Review: As Eric Muller continues his yeoman work of challenging the merits of Michele Malkin's latest liberals-are-preventing-my-ability-to-call-for-ethnic/immigrant-roundups-without-me-being-called-a-meanie book, the dull thought just hit me -- there are many benefits to a multi-post book review. Books are massive informational packages, and in any piece of nonfiction worth its salt there are at least four or five major topics worth writing about. Reviewers, who are usually stuck with the stunted work of summarizing a book's Importance, or using it as a jumping-off point for a tangentially related essay, would probably enjoy the opportunity to tease out a handful of separate responses. Especially, of course, if they were paid. Whenever someone launches (or buys) the 21st century version of Slate, that may be something to think about.

08/04/2004 02:34 PM  |  Comment (9)

What Happens When You Introduce Cathy Seipp to Your Friends: La Seipp discovers that lefties can be anti-Stalinists, and my pals learn that Republicans can be perfectly delightful. It's a win-win!

08/04/2004 02:03 PM  |  Comment (1)

‘Who is a Journalist?’ … Oh No He Did-unt! Get a load of this cartoon:


In case you aren’t graphical-minded, let me explain it to you. On the left, you have what used to be the minimum or at least typical requirements for being able to cover a major-party political convention -- a Journalism School degree, a stint covering “night cops,” time on the New York Times metro desk and with the Washington Post White House corps, and at least one Pulitzer Prize, all stretched out over 30 years. You know, the basics.

But now, you see, all you need is a laptop computer, and you’ll get credentialed as a blogger! Isn’t it just terrible how far we've fallen??

What kind of old-farty newspaper did this show up in? Oh yeah, it was a student newspaper, special for the Convention, put out by a combination of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the kids over at UMass Boston. You don’t suppose that journalism students are being taught that their education is more relevant than hard-fought experience, do you?

I know, I know, cheap shot. I’m sure the kids worked hard, which is more than you can say about “Media Nation” guest columnist Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and vice chair of the comical Committee of Concerned Journalists, who mailed in this typically fusty thigh-slapper:

Who Is a Journalist?
Some Surprising Answers
As the nation’s press descends on Boston for the Democratic Convention, the Democrats face an old problem: Who is and who isn’t a journalist?

Officially, the Democrats decide on press credentials: which scribes, bloggers, on-air correspondents and off-air producers and camera crews should have access to the action. Implicit is deciding what constitutes journalism and who is and isn’t practicing it.

When President George W. Bush’s father was president just 12 years ago, you had to be hired by a company that owned a printing press or held a license to broadcast television or radio to prove you were a journalist.

Is someone from E-Entertainment a journalist? Is Bill O’Reilly, or is he a political propagandist? What about Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore? There are moments in “Fahrenheit 911” where Moore seems to behave as if he were one. At other times, he is a celebrity and still at others, a satirist.

This year the Democrats expanded the accreditation rolls to include “bloggers” -- the current term for people who write personal Web columns, some of whom may consider themselves journalists, some of whom may not.

As for who considers themselves a journalist or not, this remains one of the least-pressing issues facing the Republic.

My colleague Bill Kovach and I have spent a number of years thinking about what constitutes a journalist and journalism.

We have some answers that may surprise you.

In the end, the public, not the practitioner, decides. So what constitutes journalism?

There’s more after the link, if you’re into that kind of thing.

08/03/2004 04:29 PM  |  Comment (5)

Some Convention Pictures, Through the Magic of Buzznet:

Me & some bum, on the Convention floor the day before.

Me & the price-gouging octogenarian Crystal Lite peddler in North End. This one’s a funny story, though I won’t do it justice. My pal Scott used to live in these parts, and as we were walking he began unwinding one of his typically long and colorful stories, about how there was this 90-year-old grandma who didn’t speak a word of English, and just sat out on the sidewalk selling yellow liquid out of a bucket for $1 a cup, causing one to figure “damn, that’s probably some really good homemade lemonade,” and so you’d buy it & immediately begin grimacing at the chemical flavor of none other than Crystal Lite. Still, she was such a great character you couldn’t not by the cup, so Scott was forced to buy it and either spit it out or dump it in the gutter around the corner. As he was wrapping up this Homeric tale, we stumbled upon … Crystal Lite grandma! Also: Note the swollen computer bag, which was attached to my shoulder like a 50-pound medicine ball.

More later.

08/03/2004 12:51 PM  |  Comment (12)

From the ‘Truth Hurts’ Dept. Dr. Frank:

Being a musician means constantly kicking yourself for the poor choices you have made in your "life."

08/02/2004 09:30 PM  |  Comment (7)

One-Week Fundraiser, Followed by Four-Week Vacation: Note to self -- Andrew Sullivan seems to have a better business plan.

08/02/2004 03:33 PM  |  Comment (0)

Beautiful Day, Wretched Musical Choice: If I was hard-up for a senior's thesis topic in either Political Science or Music, I'd do a lengthy analysis on the Democrats' twisted use of music in last week's convention. As Matthew Yglesias and some other reporters and I were yammering about while watching Kerry's speech from the loser's tent, almost every song seemed to convey precisely the opposite message than the one required and/or intended. Andrea Harris sums up the problem with U2's "Beautiful Day" here.

And sometimes the choices were just surreal. For instance, an extended outro of Marvin Gaye's "What’s Going On" (a convention favorite) using the exact same instrumentation as Paul Simon's "Kodachrome." What does it mean??? Some reporter there -- was it Jay Rosen? -- said he'd asked organizers for a list of songs played, and was told something like there was no list…. Anyway, of all the stories I wished I'd done last week, that one ranks near the top.

08/01/2004 10:59 PM  |  Comment (14)

‘Stairway to Nowhere’: Billy Beck’s instrumental electric-blues response to the Democratic Convention. Some brief notes about it here.

08/01/2004 03:03 PM  |  Comment (2)

Hey, Globe and Mail! Thanks for the Last Word, and it’s W-e-l-c-h: Last graf, for those who care. Heads-up from Weisblott.

08/01/2004 12:18 PM  |  Comment (2)

Conventions: Hey, it sure is great to have Ken Layne back writing stuff on the Internet. I would have linked to his high-quality analysis during the convention if:

A) I could have received e-mail inside the Fleet Center.
B) There was any time, for anything.
C) I wasn’t underneath 10 feet of logistical quicksand.

But before I really start whining, go read his post putting some perspective on the “Internet-writers-write-about-conventions!” mini-media-frenzies that have accompanied every major-party convention since 1996. I’ll wait….

On second thought, I’ll leave the whining for later, or hopefully never. I have been gratified to learn that some people out there found our Reason coverage to be at least worth noting, and sometimes good for a laugh. It’s the consolation prize for what was really one of the most infuriating and difficult weeks I’ve ever experienced. New York, I can assure you, will be at least 300% better.

08/01/2004 12:55 AM  |  Comment (3)

Three Quick Notes From the Democratic Convention:
1) You can read coverage from me & Tim Blair here.
2) (This one goes out to my editors): I can't read my e-mail, and have been swallowed nearly whole by the Logistics whale.
3) Yeah, I see that terrible comments spam here; get right on it one of these days.

07/27/2004 09:00 AM  |  Comment (7)

Hi! What are you doing down here?